Lisburn

Name

The city was originally known as Lisnagarvy or Lisnagarvey (from Irish: Lios na gCearrbhach meaning "ringfort of the gamesters/gamblers").[2] This is the name of the townland in which it formed. Cathedral and other records show that the name Lisburn came into common use around 1662. It is traditionally held that the town was renamed in 1662 to commemorate its burning during the Irish Rebellion of 1641.[3] The original name is still used in the titles of some local schools and sports teams.

The name Lisburn is mentioned in the depositions concerning the 1641 Rebellion where it is spelled phonetically as "Louzy Barne". James Wilson of Tunny stated as follows:

The examinacion of Jam: Wilson of Tunny in Com: Antrim aged fifty yeares or thereabouts taken vpon oath 9 June 1653 [...] was taken by prisoner by one Cormack McCan roe O Neale, & presently after the Irish in all the Country gathering togeather to goe & take Lisnegaruy [...] this examinant saith that at their comeing to Lisnegaruy aforesaid his said Capten with his Company charged on & came on the backside of the towne by a place called Louzy Barne & saith that they were presently beaten of by such of the English...[4]

[edit]History

Lisburn's original site was located on what is now known as Hill Street, on a hill above the River Lagan. There was also a fort on the north side of what is now known as Castle Gardens. In 1611 James I granted Sir Fulke Conway, a Welshman of Norman descent,[5] the lands of Killultagh in south-west County Antrim. During the 1620s the streets of Lisburn were laid out just as they are today: Market Square, Bridge Street, Castle Street and Bow Street. Conway brought over many English and Welsh settlers during the Ulster Plantation; he also had a manor house built on what is now Castle Gardens and in 1623 a church on the site of the current cathedral. The Manor House was destroyed in the accidental fire of 1707 and was never rebuilt; the city's Latin motto, Ex igne resurgam ("Out of the fire I shall arise"), is a reference to this incident.

Lisburn Market House - now forming part of the Irish Linen Centre/Lisburn Museum

Lisburn is also known as the birthplace of Ireland's linen industry, which was established in 1698 by Louis Crommelin and other Huguenots. An exhibition about the Irish linen industry is now housed in the Irish Linen Centre, which can be found in the old Market House in Market Square.[6]

Lisburn is one of the constituent cities that make up the Dublin-Belfast corridor region which has a population of just under 3 million.

[edit]The Troubles

Main article: The Troubles in Lisburn

[edit]The Cold War

Between 1954 and 1992 Lisburn contained the operational headquarters of No 31 Belfast Group Royal Observer Corps[7] who operated from a protected nuclear bunker on Knox Road within Thiepval Barracks. Converted from a 1940s Anti-aircraft Operations Room (AAOR) the bunker would support over one hundred ROC volunteers and a ten-man United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation warning team responsible for the famous Four-minute warning in the event of a nuclear strike on the UK. The ROC would also have detected radioactive fallout from the nuclear bursts and warned the public of approaching fallout.

The two organisations were disbanded in 1992 at the end of the Cold War. In 2007 a commemorative plaque was mounted on the wall of the nuclear bunker which still stands, in recognition of the service of ROC volunteers all over the Province. The BBC newsreader and steam railway enthusiast Sullivan Boomer was an Observer Commander in the ROC and served as Group Commandant of the Belfast group during the 1970s and 1980s.

Lisburn Civic Centre

[edit]Administration

Lisburn is the administrative centre of the Lisburn City Council area,[8] which also includes Hillsborough, Moira, Dromara, Glenavy, Dunmurry and Drumbo.

In elections for the Westminster Parliament the city falls mainly into the Lagan Valley constituency but partly into West Belfast.

The headquarters of the British Army in Northern Ireland at Thiepval Barracks and the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Fire Brigade are located in the city.