[4] The first Shankill residents lived at the bottom of what is now known as Glencairn: a small settlement of ancient people inhabited a ring fort, built where the Ballygomartin and Forth rivers meet.

[8] Its font, an ancient bullaun stone, resides at St Matthew's on Woodvale Road, and is said to hold the power to heal warts.

[13] One such riot occurred on 9 June 1886 following the defeat of the Government of Ireland Bill 1886, when a crowd of around 2,000 locals clashed with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) who were attempting to stop the mob from looting a liquor store.

Recruitment was also high during the Second World War and that conflict saw damage occur to the Shankill Road as part of the Belfast Blitz when a Luftwaffe bomb hit a shelter on Percy Street, killing many people.

Fire also engulfed the house next door, killing seventy-seven-year-old Protestant widow, Matilda Gould, who lived there.

[19] On 26 June a Catholic civilian, Peter Ward, a native of the Republic of Ireland, was killed and two others wounded as they left a pub on the Shankill's Malvern Street.

[21] Under the leadership of Charles Harding Smith and Andy Tyrie, the Shankill Road became a centre of UDA activity.

[22] During the 1990s, C Company under Johnny Adair became one of the most active units in the UDA, with gunmen such as Stephen McKeag responsible for several murders.

During 1971 two pub bombings took place on the Shankill, one in May at the Mountainview Tavern, at which several people were injured, and a second at the Four Step Inn in September, which resulted in two deaths.

[26] A further bomb exploded at the Balmoral Furnishing Company on 11 December that same year, resulting in four deaths, including two infants.

Eight months after the Fish shop bombing, volunteers from the Republican paramilitary group the Irish National Liberation Army shot & killed three UVF volunteers and injured a civilian outside the headquarters of Progressive Unionist Party, killing a UVF commander Trevor King.

The area of housing on the lower Shankill around Agnes Street was known colloquially as "The Hammer", one of a number of nicknames applied to districts that included "the Nick".

Several members of C Company who have died are commemorated on murals around the area, notably Stephen McKeag, William "Bucky" McCullough, who was killed by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1981 as part of a series of tit for tat murders between that group and the UDA[34] and Jackie Coulter, killed by the UVF during a loyalist feud in 2000.

The Lower Shankill is home to many loyalist pubs, the most notable being the "Royal Bar", associated with the UVF, and the "Diamond Jubilee" – a UDA haunt which became notorious as the main meeting place of "C Company" during the early 1990s.

According to investigative journalist Martin Dillon, the latter was used a centre of operations for a UVF platoon led by Anthony "Chuck" Berry.

The graveyard is noted for a statue of Queen Victoria as well as the adjacent memorial to the members of the 36th Ulster Division who died at the Battle of the Somme.

[43] Amongst those buried in the Shankill Graveyard is Rev Isaac Nelson, a Presbyterian minister who was also active in nationalist politics.

A regular route for UDA gunmen seeking access to the Falls during the Troubles, it was dubbed the "Yellow Brick Road" by Stephen McKeag and his men.

The pub was close to "The Eagle" where the UVF "Brigade Staff" had their headquarters in rooms above a chip shop bearing the same name at the Shankill and Spiers Place junction.

[51] The park features Fernhill House, the ancestral family home, which was not only used by Edward Carson to drill his Ulster Volunteers but was also the setting for the announcement of the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) ceasefire on 13 October 1994.

[58] A Belfast Shankill constituency also returned a member to the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918–1922, with Labour Unionist Samuel McGuffin holding the seat.

Robert John Lynn of the Irish Unionist Alliance represented the seat at Westminster for the entirety of its existence (1918–1922).

[60] Robert McCartney, who led his own UK Unionist Party and represented North Down at Westminster, is also originally from the Shankill.

[67] Other locals to make an impact in the sport have included Jimmy Warnock, a boxer from the 1930s who beat world champion Benny Lynch twice, and his brother Billy.

An Ulster Rangers social club is also open on the road, with the Glasgow team widely supported amongst Northern Irish Protestants.

[citation needed] Norman Whiteside, the ex-Northern Ireland and Manchester United midfielder, lived on the Shankill.

[72] The Ballygomartin Road is also home to a cricket ground of the same name which in 2005 hosted a List-A match between Canada and Namibia in the 2005 ICC Trophy.

[74] Belfast was served by a network of trams in the first half of the 20th century and the Shankill was the last part of the city to see this service removed in the 1950s.

[75] Public transport is now provided by the Metro arm of Translink with the Shankill forming the eleventh of the company's twelve corridors.

Buses link Belfast City Centre to the estates at the top of the Shankill as well as the Ballysillan area of the Crumlin Road.