The Lower Falls which includes Divis Street starts near the city centre and continues to the junction with the Grosvenor Road.

Castle Street begins at the junction with Royal Avenue and Donegall Place, the main shopping district of Belfast.

[1] The Falls Road itself was originally a country lane leading from the city centre but a largely Catholic population—refugees from a rural poverty that been intensified by Belfast's mechanisation of what had been a cottage textile industry and, in the 1840s, by famine—was drawn to the area by the prospects for female and child employment in new linen mills.

This original area, which was centred on the junction of modern-day Millfield and College Avenue on what is now Divis Street, was known as Falls and lent its name to the road.

In addition, there is the Irish language Gaelscoil an Lonnáin which occupies the site of St Finian's Primary School at the top end of Leeson Street.

It was designed by Fr Jeremiah Ryan McAulay,[30] who had trained as an architect before he became a priest, and built on a site donated by a local baker, Bernard Hughes.

Originally a flax spinning mill, it now houses a community enterprise of small businesses, art studios, retail space and education floor.

It currently offers a range of leisure facilities including a swimming pool, sauna and steam rooms, a gym, and a badminton court.

A strong working class community, the Lower Falls has a history of storytelling, music and song which was often enjoyed in the many public houses in the area.

There were three pubs, Paddy Gilmartin's which was called the Laurel Leaf, Peter Murray's [the West End Bar] directly opposite, or further down on the right-hand side was Charlie Gormley's, across from Finnegan's the butcher shop.

[70] The Spanish Rooms bar, in lower Divis Street, was famed for selling scrumpy, especially to young men on their way to a dance.

[74] Closer to the city centre, in College Court, off Castle Street, was located the Astor Ballroom which was a very popular dance venue in the 1960s and where such famous bands as Thin Lizzy and Them performed.

One of the most famous is the large mural of Bobby Sands on the side wall of the Sinn Féin's offices at the corner of Sevastopol Street.

The complex is a major training site for medical, dental, nursing and other health students from Queen's University Belfast.

[91] [92] He references the area in one of his poems: Brendan Hamill, another writer, who attended the school in the 1960s recalled later: While on teaching practice, Seamus Heaney came to St Thomas' about October that year (1962).

[96] The college has a substantial programme of community engagement playing host to many local events including many organised by Féile an Phobail.

[101] It is located on the site of the Willowbank Huts which in the late nineteenth century housed a small British Army barracks.

This was an abandoned piece of land that was transformed by local residents into a community farm providing facilities for around 50 animals and various gardening initiatives.

This centre is dedicated to the life and work of James Connolly who lived nearby for a period in the early years of the twentieth century.

It formally closed in 1969 but was taken over by the catholic parish of St Teresa of Ávila, the main church of which is located further up the Glen Road.

In the early 20th century, James Connolly, the socialist republican, resided in the Upper Falls area for a period[135] which at that time was generally seen as a bedrock of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP).

In the 1918 United Kingdom general election a separate Belfast Falls (UK Parliament constituency) was created which was again won by Joe Devlin who heavily defeated Éamon de Valera who was standing for Sinn Féin.

In the 1929 Northern Ireland general election, the Belfast, Falls constituency was won by the Nationalist Richard Byrne after a bitter contest with William McMullen, a supporter of Connolly.

[147][148] Several streets around the Falls Road were burnt out by armed 'B' Specials (Police Reserve) and loyalists in August 1969, with the murder of six Catholics on the first night marking the start of 'The Troubles.

The troops were initially welcomed by all the Falls residents to protect them, but heavy-handed tactics by the mostly British-born members of the Army who did not know, care or understand the situation would estrange most Catholics and nationalists.

3,000 British troops carried out an operation to search the area for hidden weapon caches, sealing off the streets around the Falls Road.

For the following three decades, the British Army maintained a substantial presence on the Falls Road, occupying a base on top of the Divis Tower.

This was removed in August 2005 as part of the British government's normalisation programme, following the Provisional Irish Republican Army's statement that it was ending its armed activities.

[155] In 1991, IRA hit squads based in the Upper Falls and Beechmount were involved in attacks against loyalist paramilitaries in the nearby Village area.

These include: The American singer Nanci Griffith sings in her song "It's a hard life wherever you go" which she wrote after visiting Belfast:[156] Gary Kemp, British songwriter and singer for British soft rock group Spandau Ballet attributes his writing of the band's 1986 hit "Through the Barricades" to emotion he experienced while on Falls Road.