SAILORTOWN: BELFAST.

Ripping apart a neighbourhood just to build yet another neighbourhood, isn’t always a good idea.
Plenty of ‘new town’ residents can attest; the idea is basically sound insofar as people graduate into better quality housing, although sad to say, not necessarily better communities.
Nonetheless, Belfast in the late sixties was dealt the wrecking ball in an area called ‘Sailortown.’ Just as the name suggests, it was a maritime community and if the men weren’t away at sea, they were employed on the docks and in engineering, whilst the women raised large families or else worked in the linen mills – sometimes at the same time.

Situated less than a mile from the city centre, almost opposite what is now the Titanic Heritage Centre the cleared land is owned by Belfast City Council and Belfast Harbour Commissioners, but in the interim leased out to Clanmil, a social housing enterprise. (1)

In 1969 the previous housing was demolished to make way for the M2 motorway, and although to some it was a clean break from damp, dilapidated terraced residences along cobbled streets to newer homes elsewhere, others resented what in effect was a forced move.
For years Belfast’s Sailortown was like any other sailortown worldwide, that is to say a bustling seaport district catering to transient seafarers with diversionary places such as bars, bookmakers and tattoo parlours, but also the essentials such as lodging houses, shops, shipping offices and religious institutions – places were local people, immigrants, social reformers and, of course, on-leave sailors could meet.

Over the years there was a large influx of seamen from Baltic states as well as China and India, whilst in later years hundreds of Italian immigrants made Sailortown their home.People from across Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant, settled there with the number never so large as during the potato famine.Some seafarers jumped ship and others either married or shacked-up with local girls – altogether the area received a large international gene pool from visiting sailors.
Of course, on-going modernisation meant that by the 20th century, brothels, slums, drinking dens and seedy dives were disappearing, in part due to reformers, both social and religious.Huge numbers of people living in one room was gradually phased out – indeed, better living conditions were established all round.

After the year 1969 most streets had been razed to the ground that now there are only a few original houses, St Joseph’s Church, and two pubs, the American Bar and the Rotterdam pub.
Despite most residents already relocated, these two pubs were still very popular.It seems that they either walked or caught a bus or taxi back to these original local drinking haunts.Both did a roaring trade, and if lucky enough to dock in Belfast at this time most guys would make them a first port of call particularly as they were renowned for live music – rock bands were especially showcased.

Although I don’t recall any comedy nights at the pubs, a top-class comedian of that period was local lad Frank Carson who, when not appearing on The Comedians television programme, would occasionally call in for a drink. Although many other locals and musicians were comics themselves: one rock frontman quipped that ‘he came from a musical family, even the sewing machine is a Singer!’It was a series of great boozy nights and conversation – very much the craic often found across Ireland.
Of late, I believe that the American has now reopened after the pandemic, but, alas, the Rotterdam closed in 2008 due to ‘further urban redevelopment’, ie, in planner’s speak meaning it’s on the cards to be flattened.Despite some talk that Sailortown could be a suspicious and mistrustful place, I didn’t find this at all and seafarers were always warmly received in both pubs – Belfast is a friendly and welcoming city anyway – as long as locals knew we were ‘off the ship’ that was all that mattered.They rarely asked ‘which ship? – just as long as they knew we were sailors.

And of course being a time when the ‘Troubles’ were becoming more intense it was important to establish credentials; for example, in 1972  the horrific murder of two little girls in a terrorist bombing outside Sailortown’s Benny’s Bar caused outrage to which, as a minimum mark of respect, pubs and shops temporarily closed.To give some perspective, the Ulster Troubles were at their worst in 1972 when estimates were that one person was murdered every 18 hours – a truly shocking statistic.

However, locals and seafarers alike would nevertheless still speak in glowing terms of the sense of community in the area.And when the new Dockers Club on Pilot Street opened in 1978, evidence of the disgust which members felt over the Troubles was expressed in the visitors’ book by the entrance – ‘all politics to be left at the door’ – wise words indeed.

The Dockers Club, by the way, has been a pillar of the surrounding community providing boxing leagues and acting tuition, charity fund-raising and cross-community prayer evenings – in fact cross-community relations are something the club prides itself on.Returning to the seafarers though, and by 1978 guys who had made Sailortown their home were usually flying overseas to join a ship – typically a cruise liner or tanker – instead of joining a vessel on Donegall Quay.They were still registered with the Shipping Federation office, or ‘Pool’ on Corporation Street, close to the Lifeboat, the pub being a favourite meeting place for anyone just shipping out, returning from sea or in between voyages. There was a sign over the door – of many in Ireland which read: Cead Mile Failte (a hundred thousand welcomes); beers in the Lifeboat were cheap and there was always someone to chat to (although I’m not sure if the pub’s still in business, it may have been demolished). So there is little left of the original Sailortown, but it is St Joseph’s Church which deserves a mention if only for the fact that local people have been tirelessly campaigning to save the building for years.

Also known as The Chapel on the Quays, St Joseph’s spire was often the last landmark mariners would see as they sailed to distant lands.It held parish records confirming there were once five thousand residents close by – so quite a sizeable community.Since it has been empty and deconsecrated for years due to falling church attendances (no surprise there – Sailortown’s population had virtually tanked), it is nevertheless a fine old building full of sweeping arches but now sandwiched in the middle of two new plate-glass edifices.

Despite the Belfast Health and Safety executive decreeing that the building is too ‘damp and cold’ for regular use (2) campaigners commenced renovation and using a predatory falcon they first evicted the  pigeons, plus the roof was fixed, ostensibly to use the church as a community hub.Of course, more detailed work was needed and was completed, but as far as I know, renovation progressed to the point where a musical and poetry event was successfully staged there on St Patrick’s Day this year.

Anyway, so much for a seafarer to speak nostalgically, but outside of Sailortown media exposure is slight and people usually only get familiarised through BBC dramas such as James Nesbitt’s Bloodlands  – a recent televised police drama.So unless regularly tuned in to Northern Ireland news reports, it is probably not as well-known that Obelisk Tower on Donegall Quay is 85 metres high and the tallest storyed building in Ireland. There are 233 apartments there price ranging from £120k to nearly half a million pounds – hardly in the affordable homes bracket.
So discontent over lack of affordable homes simmers, and in 1969 residents enticed by offers of new houses around the city were promised that one day they would be able to return.However, this didn’t happen.

So what’s it all about? Fancy new buildings or people? For since Sailortown’s demolition, the two processes of deindustrialisation and urban development have arguably caused more social decline than the Troubles. People were moved around the city and in the process lost jobs, friends, neighbours and vital contacts.
For sure, if Sailortown was in London it would have been snapped up as prime real estate in no time.Instead, redevelopment in Belfast has been very slow with some Legoland-type apartment blocks hotels under construction, but elsewhere huge gaps of temporary car parks and half-finished roads – the ugly concrete bridges at Corporation Street and Dock Street especially make the district look grey and brutal.

New investment has flooded in, and to its credit Clanmil has constructed some much-needed social housing, but a trawl through internet sites reveal that disproportionate capital comes from England, especially London where, no doubt, the rents will be repatriated.Also locals are scornful indeed of what estate agents call ‘aggressive speculative residential development’ which is just an eloquent way of saying that rip-off landlords are buying up property just to sit on till prices go up.

And what follows is that some of Sailortown’s new apartments result in gentrification, briefly that process in which new money floods into an area and raises house prices. There are positives and negatives to it all, but probably the best research is from Alan Ehrenhalt of Governing magazine who cynically notes three interpretations of gentrification: (3)
a)   Great! – the value of my house has gone up and I’m now rich. 
b)   Gentrification is ok I suppose, but coffee is more expensive now there’s a Starbucks in town.
c)   It’s sad – myself and my neighbours can now no longer afford to live there.

Well, it is all a controversial topic with these wildly different views, but with the slow wait by Belfast families in being able to secure a roof over the heads, I think the third interpretation would be the one they’re likely to agree with.
They’d probably want a neighbourly vibrant community, one similar to the one they had to vacate years back – perhaps even a local pubwith Cead Mile Failte over the front door.So fifty years on, isn’t it about time someone moved a little quicker with Sailortown?

REFERENCES.
1). http://www.clanmil.org (Home)  – accessed 26.05.2021
2). http://www.sailortownregeneration.com (About Us) – accessed 26.05.2021
3)  Ehrenhalt, A. (Feb 2015) What exactly is gentrification?, (Governing Magazine)       – accessed 26.05.2021