Springfield Road

The Springfield Road is a residential area and road traffic thoroughfare adjacent to the Falls Road in west Belfast. The local population is predominantly Irish nationalist and republican. Parts of the road form an interface area with the neighbouring Ulster loyalist areas of the Greater Shankill and it was the site of much activity during the Troubles. The Springfield Road includes the Ballymurphy and New Barnsley districts and is overlooked by Black Mountain and Divis.

Much of what now forms the housing estates of the Springfield Road was formerly rural land near the base of the mountains. The area around what became New Barnsley was known as Brown's Fields and was formerly used for grazing cattle. The area would later become industrialised with James Mackie & Sons establishing a textile factory on the road in the late nineteenth century. It became a leading employer and produced large quantities of munitions during the Second World War.

The area experienced growth in the 1940s when a series of housing estates were built. The pattern of segregation in Northern Ireland was maintained as the new estates were partitioned along religious lines, with the Highfield and New Barnsley estates on the northern side of the road predominantly Protestant and the Ballymurphy estate earmarked for a mainly Catholic population. The area saw an influx of temporary residents in the 1960s when the inhabitants of the Pound Loney area of the lower Falls were temporarily rehoused in Ballymurphy whilst the new Divis flats complex was built. A young Gerry Adams, who had been involved in agitation against the redevelopment of the Pound Loney, was amongst those to be rehoused in this manner.

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