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is a city in Northern Ireland, close to Belfast. The Council area has been given
city status in 2002 and is split between County Antrim & County Down, Northern Ireland.
Lisburn has a population of around 71,500.
Industry
Lisburn is the birthplace of the Irish linen industry, which was established in
1698. An exhibition about the Irish linen industry is now housed in the Irish Linen
Centre, which can be found in the town’s old Market House in Market Square. The
city is a popular shopping centre, with a wide range of retail outlets both in the
Lisburn town centre and in the out-of-town centres.
Geography
The River Lagan denotes the county boundary. Unlike most cities which are urban,
Lisburn city consists of the town of Lisburn, surrounded by a primarily rural farming
area.
History
Lisburn was founded in 1600 when the of Irish chieftains were in rebellion against
the rule of the English in Ireland, and among them was the chief of Killultagh whose
stronghold was near the tiny village which formed the nucleus of the modern town
of Lisburn. When this last rising of Irish chieftains failed, the territory of Killultagh
passed into the hands of Sir Fulke Conway who invited English and Welsh tenants
to settle in his village. When Conway Castle was built in 1627, fifty three house
constituted the settlement. In 1641, Bridge Street, Castle Street and the Market
Square area, the basic street formation of modern Lisburn, were already in existence.
In 1707, a great fire destroyed Lisburn, even the great castle falling to the flames.
The castle was never rebuilt, but its gardens remained to become the property of
the people of Lisburn in the later nineteenth century. In 1800, Lisburn consisted
of about 800 houses and 4,800 people. It was almost a quarter of the size of Belfast
which today is about twenty-five times that of Lisburn.
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