Belfast City Hall
July 25th, 2007 | 
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Planning for Belfast’s City Hall began, naturally enough, in 1888 when it was awarded the status of city by Queen Victoria (hence the relatively large number of things in the city named after her, of course) with building competed in 1906.
The city centre location makes the grounds a very popular area for lunch in the 
Summer months and they’re used as the venue for the Christmas markets and various concerts.
Although there are regular free tours of the building during the week, these aren’t terribly well promoted at the moment so many people miss the impressive Victorian architecture, stained glass windows and paintings which are certainly worth the 40 minutes or so that they take.
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Hi!
My name is Frida and I come from Sweden. When I was on Malta a couple of weeks ago I met a guy who I liked very much :). And now I’m wondering if it will be hard for me to find him again? I know his last name is McManus, but is that a common name in Ireland? I will be very thankful if you can help me!
Greetings from Sweden
McManus is a fairly common name but your task isn’t impossible.
If you knew what town he was from, you could try searching for him in the phone book (www.bt.com then select “find a person” at the bottom left). Snag is that there is a limit on the number of searches per day (10 I think). If you don’t know the town, try Belfast as chances are that you’ll find him or someone who knows him by this method.
Another alternative is to try placing an ad in the http://www.BelfastTelegraph.co.uk or the http://www.IrishTimes.ie if he was from the Republic of Ireland.
Hello!
I hope this is ending up in the right spot, I apologize profusely if it doesn’t. I am at a total loss. I am tracing my Irish roots, and I cannot find anything on my GGGrandfather, James Burnell. He had 3 sons, Alfie, James Jr. & Charles. He also had a daughter named Susan Jane Burnell (b. Sep 17 1865 near Belfast, Ireland) who married my GGrandfather, William Fowler. I heard that she hails from the town/county of Burnell. I am soooo lost on this one. I am desperate to find my Irish roots, but I am smacking into brick walls all over the place.
Does any of this sound famiilar to anyone? I apologize for the HUGE email……lol!
Kind regards,
Lori Fowler
We’re doing a little series on family history on our other blog at http://www.stewartfamilyhistory.com which should, in due course, provide pointers as to where to go for all this kind of information.
First off, you should apply for the birth certificate of Susan from 1865 as that’s the earliest certificate that you can get (registration of births & deaths started in 1864). You can apply online at http://www.groni.gov.uk .
This will give you information for your GGGrandfather and GGGrandmother, in particular their jobs, where they were living, and possibly other useful information (eg it may include information about her brothers). I wouldn’t rely on the town of Burnell too much as that might just be a co-incidence with the name.
With the birth certificate info, you may be able to get information on the marriage of her parents as you will know where they lived and probably their religion. Together, that should let you make a good guess at which church they’d have been married in. Since people didn’t, by and large, move around a whole lot in those days you might find that the church will have records on births, deaths and marriages going back several generations (although not officially registered ’til 1864 obviously this information was still recorded by the churches earlier than that).
Note: whilst up to 1922 there was only “Ireland”, the records for what is now Northern Ireland are held by the Northern Ireland records office.