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The Shankill Road ()〔(PlaceNames NI: Shankill )〕 is one of the main roads leading through west Belfast, Northern Ireland. It runs through the predominantly loyalist working-class area known as the Shankill. The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast and is lined, to an extent, by shops. The residents live in the many streets which branch off the main road. Much of the area along the Shankill Road forms the five wards of Court district electoral area. ==History== The first Shankill residents lived at the bottom of what is now known as Glencairn: a small settlement of ancient people inhabited a ring fort, built where the Ballygomartin and Forth rivers meet.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=Shankill Tourism )〕 A settlement around the point at which the Shankill Road becomes the Woodvale Road, at the junction with Cambrai Street, was known as Shankill from the Irish ''Seanchill'' meaning 'old church'. Believed to date back to 455 CE,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=Greater Shankill Partnership )〕 it was known as the "Church of St Patrick of the White Ford" and in time had six smaller churches, known as "alterages", attached to it across the west bank of the River Lagan.〔Hamilton, p. 1〕 The church was an important site of pilgrimage and it is likely that the ford of the River Farset, which later became the core of Belfast, was important because of its site on the pilgrimage route. As a paved road the Shankill dates back to around the sixteenth century as at the time it was part of the main road to Antrim, a role now filled by the A6.〔Hamilton, p.2〕 The lower sections of the Shankill Road were in former times the edge of Belfast with both Boundary Street on the lower Shankill and Townsend Street in the middle Shankill taking their names from the fact that at the time they were built they marked the approximate end of Belfast. The area expanded greatly in the mid to late 19th century with the growth of the linen industry. Many of the streets in the Shankill area, such as Leopold Street, Cambrai Street and Brussels Street, were named after places and people connected with Belgium or Flanders, where the flax from which the linen was woven was grown. The linen industry, along with others that had previously been successful in the area, declined in the mid-20th century leading to high unemployment levels, which remain at the present time. The Harland and Wolff shipyard, although on the other side of Belfast, was also a traditional employer for the area,〔Hamilton, p. 28〕 and it too has seen its workforce numbers decline in recent years. The area was also a regular scene of rioting in the nineteenth century, often of a sectarian nature after Irish Catholic areas on the Falls Road and Ardoyne emerged along with the city's prosperity. One such riot occurred on 9 June 1886 following the defeat of the Government of Ireland Bill 1886 when a crowd of around 2,000 locals clashed with Royal Irish Constabulary police attempting to stop the mob from looting a liquor store. Local law enforcement officers had to barricade themselves in Bower's Hill barracks where a long siege followed. Bower's Hill was a name applied to the area of the road between Agnes Street and Crimea Street.〔Hamilton, p. 9〕 The West Belfast Division of the original Ulster Volunteer Force organised on the Shankill and drilled in Glencairn and many of its members saw service in the First World War with the 36th (Ulster) Division.〔Hamilton, p. 14〕 A garden of remembrance beside the graveyard and a mural on Conway Street commemorate those who fought in the war. Recruitment was also high during the Second World War and that conflict saw damage occur to the Shankill Road as part of the Belfast Blitz when a Luftwaffe bomb hit a shelter on Percy Street, killing many people. The site of the destruction was visited by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester soon after the attack.〔Hamilton, p. 19〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Shankill Road」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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