The boundaries of the Holyland are generally considered to be the area between University Street, the Ormeau Road, the River Lagan, Botanic Gardens and Queen's.
[1] The Holyland street network was built up to its present layout in the 1890s by Belfast's oldest firm of property consultants, Brown McConnell Clark.
Sir Robert McConnell, a devout Christian Victorian developer and a previous unionist Lord Mayor of Belfast, was part of one of the founding families of the firm.
When he later developed this area, he named the streets after the places they had visited (Carmel, Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem and Palestine) and they became known as 'the Holyland',[2] after the region around the Middle East's Holy Land.
This has transformed the area’s population from initially Protestant to mainly working class Catholic families to the current level of over 90% student and young worker occupation.
Student overcrowding in houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) and poor community infrastructure has also meant an increase in a wide range of petty crimes.
There has been increased media attention on the Holyland area over the last few years, most notably on the BBCNI Spotlight current affairs television programme, which highlighted these problems of student anti-social behaviour.