THE HOLYLAND, BELFAST, from working-class, protestant area to St Patrick's Day student madness!

We visit what’s known as the Holyland in the Queen’s Quarter of Belfast. The origin of this name Holyland will become obvious as we walk around the area. We start our journey in Rugby Road, which has a nice row of detached houses, very different to some of the housing we’ll be looking at later in this video. This leafy part of south Belfast is adjacent to the Botanic gardens, but also right next to Queen’s University and so consequently is primarily made up of student flats, Rugby Road being the exception since the housing here is a bit more special than the streets behind. But, I thought this particular street, Rugby Road, was worth looking at before we get into the heart of the Holyland, simply because it has some really lovely houses.

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But, as we turn the corner into Agincourt Avenue, we see the real 'Holyland', and the place where not only the name is derived, but also a certain reputation. So, in these less extravagant houses, which are mostly divided into flats, are housed thousands of students from the university; hence the drycleaners, essential in any student neighbourhood. And, increasingly this area, like many of Belfast’s working-class areas, is seeing a large influx of immigrants. This makes the Holylands one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the city. So we have a student population and a large ethnic population siting side by side. That in itself causes no problems, after all if students aren’t tolerant towards new arrivals in our city then who is? But, this area does occasionally have problems and these problems tend to be seasonal and centred around St Patricks day.

It should be obvious that when you get so many students crammed into such a small geographical area that there will be occasional bouts of celebration. After all many of these young people are living away from home for the first time and enjoying themselves fully in the process – who would deny them that? Indeed, there can be few people in Belfast who in their youth didn’t end up at a party back in the Holyland somewhere, after a night out at somewhere like Lavery’s Bar. It’s a special place in that sense.

As we approach Jerusalem Street you can guess why this place is nicknamed the Holyland. We just passed Palestine Street and further along here we have Damascus Street.

There's a corner shop, now there’s something that’s on the decline in working class communities, but here in the Holyland there are quite a few small grocery places where students can top up on their pot noodles and baked beans. But, back to St Patricks Day. In recent years this place has exploded into an orgy of drinking, and I’m sad to say pretty antisocial behaviour on this bank holiday. It would be unfair to blame the student residents as a whole for this, many students go home during this period, but there’s certainly been a hard core of student drinkers who’ve given this place a terrible reputation. The police now have a heavy presence here during the St Patricks Day holiday and the University has got involved too, threatening expulsions and fines for students who are involved.

It’s also the case that many of the revellers who cause havoc here on St Patricks Day don’t live here. Some may be friends of the students down from their towns and villages in the country, while undoubtedly others come here just to cause trouble.

And of course we pass an off-licence, the 'Mecca' in the Holyland (if you’ll excuse the pun) for the student drinking population. Its at this place where manys a good night begins and, alas, it probably fuels much of the craziness that results on the St Patrick’s Day holiday.

These streets came to have their exotic foreign names from a previous Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sir Robert McConnell. He teamed up with a builder James Rea and developed this area in the 1890’s naming the streets after places he had travelled. As a strict Victorian Christian, he would no doubt have been disappointed in the Holyland’s reputation for debauchery today.

These streets were once a Protestant area of Belfast, which is a city where 'Protestant' and 'Catholic' traditionally matters. However, in recent years the swelling intake of students at the university has seen this area house 7000 students. And they’re not all from queens, 60% are from Ulster University. But what is significant is that the majority of these students are Catholic and so the religious demographic of this area has been completely transformed.

As you can see there is some newly built accommodation in this area too, so the lack of official university halls is being capitalised on by private landlords.