Belfast: walls within

Belfast has been characterised by a degree of residential segregation between Catholics and Protestants from the city’s founding in the early seventeenth century. This segregation has increased over time, producing current levels that are higher than in any earlier period. It is suggested in this paper that a useful framework for understanding Belfast’s segregation history is to see the city as one that has developed in a ‘frontier zone’—a zone founded on the interfacing of the ‘British’ and the ‘Irish’ realms. The dynamics of the situation can be periodised under four headings—referred to here as the ‘colonial city’, the ‘immigrant-industrial city’, the ‘ethnonational city: beginnings’ and the ‘ethnonational city: rampant’. Segregation in Belfast has provided a basis for community solidarities whilst also generating an environment for the maintenance of community conflict and group stereotyping. In this context only a resolution of the ethnonational conflict itself is likely to lead to a reduction in residential segregation.