Donegall Road
Street sign near Broadway.
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| Former name(s) | Blackstaff Lane Blackstaff Road |
|---|---|
| Maintained by | Belfast City Council |
| Location | Shaftesbury and Beechmount, Belfast |
| Postal code | BT12 5 |
| Coordinates | 54°35′19″N 5°57′24″W / 54.5886°N 5.9567°WCoordinates: 54°35′19″N 5°57′24″W / 54.5886°N 5.9567°W |
| West end | Falls Road |
| Major junctions |
Broadway roundabout: North →  WestlinkSoutheast → Boucher Road South →  M1 motorwayNorthwest → Broadway |
| East end | Shaftesbury Square |
The Donegall Road is a residential area and road traffic thoroughfare that runs from Shaftesbury Square on the "Golden Mile" to the Falls Road in west Belfast. It is bisected by the Westlink – M1 motorway. The largest section of the road, east of the Broadway junction with the Westlink, is predominantly loyalist. The remainder is predominantly republican.
The eastern side the road and the streets leading from it, are predominantly Protestant and include the well-known Sandy Row and The Village areas. The Village, an area centred on the loyalist section of Broadway and vaguely conforming to the upper half of the Protestant section of the road, was said to have been given the name by African-American GIs stationed at a base on Maldon Street during the Second World War, who described their occasional trips to the shops in the area as "going to the village". Previously the area was locally known by a number of names including Broadway, Donegall Road, Blackstaff, Linfield and Windsor but the Village name caught on and is still in common usage. The Greater Village Regeneration Trust extends the definition further to cover the entire Protestant part of the road as well as Sandy Row.
Most of the housing is of the 'two up, two down' (many of them converted) red-bricked terraced variety. The area is mostly working class, but has become a catchment area for student rental accommodation due to its close proximity to Queen's University. Across Broadway in West Belfast the demographics change as the road forms the southern border of the almost exclusively Roman Catholic St. James' area. Located where this section of the road meets the Broadway intersection is the Park Centre, a shopping centre built on the former site of Celtic Park, the home of the now defunct Belfast Celtic. The roundabout at this intersection is also home to Rise, a huge spherical metal sculpture completed in 2011.
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Wikipedia