{"id":654077,"date":"2025-12-25T12:43:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T12:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/654077\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T12:43:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T12:43:19","slug":"popular-story-behind-unusual-row-of-belfast-houses-a-myth-says-historian-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/654077\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular story behind unusual row of Belfast houses a \u2018myth\u2019, says historian \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A historian has revealed that the popular origin story behind a rare feature in a row of south Belfast houses<\/a> is a \u201cmyth\u201d. <\/p>\n

Homes at the top of University Street, located just behind Queen\u2019s University\u2019s Seamus Heaney Centre<\/a>, uniquely feature \u2018double frontage\u2019. <\/p>\n

While their true front entrance is located on the next street over on Mount Charles, the rear of the homes on University Street are \u2018false fronts\u2019 \u2013 designed to look like the front of homes. <\/p>\n

Read more: <\/b>World War I veteran remembered 110 years on thanks to family\u2019s dedication<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"‘At<\/a>\"Emma<\/a><\/p>\n

The gaps between the \u2018false fronts\u2019 and the actual rear of the houses can still be seen through some of the windows where there are no panes. <\/p>\n

\"HistorianThe gaps between the ‘false front’ and the rear of the homes is visible through windows without panes PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN <\/p>\n

A unique example of such a feature within Belfast, the widely accepted story is that the false fronts were built ahead of the visit of Queen Victoria in 1849<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, historian Robert J.E. Simpson told The Irish News that this version of events is \u201cabsolutely nonsense\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason it was done was not in order to hide slum locations from Queen Victoria,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe visited in August 1849. And yes, there was an awful lot of work done around the city to make improvements, to make sure that it was as \u2018appealing\u2019 to her as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at that point, this bit of Belfast was still very much open, green space. There were certain quite high-profile, quite fancy houses, but this area hadn\u2019t yet been done up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HistorianThe row of false fronts on Belfast’s University Street PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN <\/p>\n

While he said that Victoria did pass the street to go to the university, the buildings \u201cweren\u2019t actually erected until ten years after\u201d her visit, and the area wasn\u2019t a \u201cslum\u201d as popularly cited. <\/p>\n

\u201cA man called Mr Hughes had these built up,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole attraction of them was that although they were quite small for the time, as sort of townhouses went, they had this double frontage with that wall at the back looking like a front that would have concealed the yard space from the public and actually would have made it quite private. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were quite nice houses as things went. The rent at the time was about \u00a340, \u00a350 a year. It\u2019s about five and a half grand in today\u2019s money, which for the Queen\u2019s area of Belfast is very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Simpson added of the popular explanation: \u201cThat\u2019s a story that the tour guides will tell you, and it\u2019s absolutely nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queen Victoria\u2019s visit to the city in 1849 came as her popularity in Ireland was at a low in the wake of the famine. <\/p>\n

She would later be nicknamed the \u2018Famine Queen\u2019 for her lack of support for the Irish people during the famine years. <\/p>\n

Her donation of \u00a32,000 at the time is thought to be around \u00a3210,000 in today\u2019s money, however royal protocol meant that nobody was allowed to donate more than the monarch.<\/p>\n

The Sultan of Turkey attempted to donate the equivalent of more than \u00a31m but had to reduce his donation to below that of Victoria\u2019s. <\/p>\n

Around one million people died as a result of the famine, with a further two million forced to emigrate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historian has revealed that the popular origin story behind a rare feature in a row of south…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[2378,2348,1144,57262,29728,133077,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-654077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-history","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-queen-victoria","12":"tag-queen-s-university","13":"tag-south-belfast","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115780271383612237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}