Belfast Central Library

The Belfast Central Library is a building defined by its rigid, red sandstone facade and the prominent, semicircular arched windows that run along the Royal Avenue frontage. Opened in eighteen eighty-eight, this Victorian structure replaced the city’s earlier, more modest collections with a grand space intended to house a growing public archive. During the Belfast Blitz of nineteen forty-one, a bomb struck the building’s roof, causing fire and water damage that nearly destroyed the entire local history collection held inside.