Falls Road, Belfast

The Falls Road (Irish bóthar na bhFál ) is the main street of a predominantly Catholic, republican set Irish inhabited residential area west of the center of Northern Ireland's capital Belfast. In their neighborhood, the heavily Protestant- unionist Shankill district is dominated by the Shankill Road, from which the Falls district is bounded by fencing, so-called peace lines, to separate the conflicting parties.

History

The district has traditionally been strong socialist influenced ( among other things lived here from time to time the Scots- Irish socialist and trade unionist James Connolly ). From the Falls Road from Irish republicans began in the late 1960s, their campaign for greater civil rights in Northern Ireland (eg equal opportunities on the labor market) and for an end to discrimination against them. Radicals loyalists opposed against them. If the district was mainly 1969 and 1970 as one of the main venues of the Northern Ireland Civil War, the so-called Troubles. The British Army was deployed in the district to defuse the situation, but was felt after the initial confidence of the Republicans in their neutrality increasingly as an occupying power. In response to attacks by the extremist Republican PIRA ( Provisional IRA ) in early July 1970 by the Army over the area a three-day curfew imposed (If Curfew ). At the height of the Troubles occurred in the case repeatedly firefights with the army and the paramilitary Official IRA. The British troops remained until 2005 present in the district.

Gaeltacht Quarter

In the case district is spread through his Irish Republican background, the Irish language and far and it is therefore also known as the Gaeltacht Quarter of Belfast.