Antrim Road
The Antrim Road[1] is a major arterial route and area of housing and commerce that runs from inner city north Belfast to Dunadry, passing through Newtownabbey and Templepatrick.
[3] The road was one of the areas of the city to suffer sustained bombardment by the Luftwaffe as part of the Belfast Blitz of April and May 1941 and was amongst those hit the hardest resulting in a high number of casualties.
Shortly after the air raid sirens sounded at 10.40 pm, the Luftwaffe bombers began dropping incendiaries, powerful explosive bombs and parachute mines.
[7] The Antrim Road begins at Carlisle Circus, a roundabout north of the city centre just past the Westlink motorway.
Opened in 1904 after a sizeable donation from Otto Jaffe it served as the city's synagogue for a number of years before more modern premises were secured on Somerton Road.
[8] The area was noted for its Jewish population, with many Russian Jews fleeing persecution settling there in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
[8] The synagogue is close to St Malachy's College, a historic Catholic grammar school for boys which has produced several notable alumni.
[16] The Westland estate was previously home to the Shoukri brothers, two dominant figures in the North Belfast Brigade of the UDA who subsequently fell out of favour.
The upper section of the Antrim Road in Belfast is variously known as Downview and Bellevue, with both areas mostly made up of large detached and semi-detached private houses.
The North Belfast parliament seat is held by John Finucane of Sinn Féin whilst the corresponding Assembly seats are held by Paula Bradley and William Humphrey and of the DUP, Carál Ní Chuilín and Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin and Nichola Mallon of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
[30] The East Antrim parliamentary seat is held by Sammy Wilson (DUP) with the Assembly seats held by David Hilditch and Gordon Lyonsof the DUP, Roy Beggs Jr and John Stewart of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and Stewart Dickson of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI).
Castle is represented by Lydia Patterson and Gut Spence of the DUP, Mary Campbell and Tierna Cunningham of Sinn Féin, David Browne of the UUP and Pat Convery of the SDLP.
[33] The seats in Oldpark are held by Daniel Lavery, Conor Maskey and Gerard McCabe of Sinn Féin, Ian Crozier and Gareth McKee of the DUP and Nichola Mallon of the SDLP.
The seven councillors for this area are Audrey Ball and Paula Bradley of the DUP, Marie Mackessy and Gerard O'Reilly of Sinn Féin, as well as John Blair (APNI), Mark Cosgrove (UUP) and Noreen McClelland (SDLP).
The councillors are Sam Dunlop and Roy Thompson of the DUP, Paul Michael and Mervyn Rea of the UUP as well as Thomas Burns (SDLP), Alan Lawther (APNI) and Annemarie Logue (Sinn Féin).
Indeed, as late as 2011 the Antrim Road was still being affected by the hangover of the Troubles when in January of that year the Glandore area around Skegoneill Avenue was closed due to a car bomb left by dissident republicans.
[44] The PIRA, specifically the Third Battalion of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade, was for a long time active in the republican districts on the lower Antrim Road.
One of the group's earliest attacks in the local area occurred on 29 October 1971 when a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer was killed by a bomb at the police base on the Antrim Road.
[46] Shootings between the PIRA and the security forces were regular events in the New Lodge area during the early 1970s and on 4 February 1973 one of these resulted in the deaths of an IRA volunteer and three civilians, were shot dead by British Army snipers.
[55] Later that same year a civilian was killed on the Cavehill Road in what The Sunday Tribune reported had been an error, with a loyalist paramilitary again the intended target.
[57] UVF activity during the early 1970s helped to earn the road its "murder mile" nickname with a number of killings and attacks carried out by the paramilitary organisation.
[48] Using the cover name of Protestant Action Force (PAF), the UVF claimed responsibility for blowing up the Christian Brothers Past Pupils Union building on 21 May 1975.
[65] However the UVF killed two Catholic civilians on the Antrim Road within the space of three weeks in November 1990, one at his home in Spamount Street in the New Lodge and the other at his Duncairn Gardens workplace.
[61] On 27 August 1976 UDA members petrol-bombed the home of a young Catholic family on Hillman Street, just off the Duncairn Gardens interface.
[72] This was followed on 12 February 1989 by what would later become one of their most notorious actions when UDA members entered the home of Pat Finucane on Fortwilliam Drive, off the Antrim Road and shot him dead.
[74] Their last killing on the road came after the collapse of the 1994 Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire when, on 1 September 1996 they shot dead a Catholic civilian outside his friend's house on Skegoneill Avenue.
