Cathedral Quarter, Belfast

The Cathedral Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a developing area of the city, roughly situated between Royal Avenue near where the Belfast Central Library building is, and the Dunbar Link in the city centre. From one of its corners, the junction of Royal Avenue, Donegall Street and York Street, the Cathedral Quarter lies south and east. Part of the area, centred on Talbot Street behind the cathedral, was formerly called the Half Bap. The Cathedral Quarter also contains the former area of The Half Bap that is where the mac theatre is built on and also the Encore hotel is also built on this area called the Half Bap district which was Belfast District 1 on the postcode the This area should be called the Half Bap QUARTER it says hanging on the wall facing the Duke of York Bar The Half Bap. The "Little Italy" area,was on the opposite side of Great Patrick Street centred on Little Patrick Street and Nelson Street

The Cathedral Quarter extends out to the edge of what can be referred as the old merchant quarter of the city. Past where the merchant area meets the Cathedral Quarter is still mostly merchant trade and services orientated and undeveloped for visitor services.

The Cathedral Quarter is so called because St Anne's Cathedral lies at its heart. St. Anne's or Belfast Cathedral is a Church of Ireland cathedral.

Traditionally, the Cathedral Quarter was the centre of Belfast's trade and warehousing district, which sprung up directly from the prosperous linen and shipbuilding industries. The quarter still retains some of Belfast's oldest buildings and thoroughfares, including Waring Street and Hill Street.

The area fell into decline in the last century, but more recently it has re-emerged as a dedicated 'cultural quarter' of Belfast. Areas such as North Street are still in a state of dilapidation, but are likely to be redeveloped along with the rest of the quarter.

The definition of the area as a cultural quarter mostly came about because of the recent significant growth in arts- and culture-based organisations that are located there. As is the case with London's Covent Garden and Dublin's Temple Bar in the years before they became as renowned as they are, low rent and a central city location attracted to the area a wide variety of tenants. Some examples include Northern Visions TV (a.k.a. Belfast Community Television), The Safehouse Arts Gallery (and its parent organisation Community Visual Images), Belfast Print Workshop and Belfast's small Zen Meditation community, which has its headquarters at Black Mountain Zen Centre (a.k.a. Belfast Meditation Centre) in rooms in Cathedral Buildings, opposite St. Anne's. Dilapidated infrastructure, however, prevented any sort of mass repopulation of the area until recently. Development and repopulation may further have been hindered from a time since the North Street Arcade, a listed building from the 1930s in the traditional Art Deco style, burned down in what many people believe were suspicious circumstances in 2003.

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