page_title: Economy of Belfast
section_title: History of the economy
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of Belfast / History of the economy
caption_attribution_description: Belfast's Harland and Wolff Shipyard during construction of the RMS Adriatic Copyright 1907. Underwood and UnderwoodNow in public domain.Taken from: http://www.joyceimages.com/images/SV%20Belfast%20Shipyard.JPG
context_page_description: The economy of Belfast, Northern Ireland was initially built on trade through Belfast Harbour. Later, industry contributed to its growth, particularly shipbuilding and linen. At the beginning of the 20th century Belfast was both the largest producer of linen in the world
  and also boasted the world's largest shipyard.Civil unrest impacted the city's industry for many years, but with the republican and loyalist ceasefires of the mid-1990s, Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement in 2006, the city's economy has seen some resurgence once again.
context_section_description: When the population of Belfast town began to grow in the 17th century, its economy was built on commerce. It provided a market for the surrounding countryside and the natural inlet of Belfast Lough gave the city its own port. The port supplied an avenue for trade with Great Britain and later Europe and North America. In the mid-seventeenth century, Belfast exported beef, butter, hides, tallow and corn and it imported coal, cloth, wine, brandy, paper, timber and tobacco. Around this time, the linen trade in Northern Ireland blossomed and by the middle of the eighteenth century, one fifth of all the linen exported from Ireland was shipped from Belfast. The present city however is a product of the Industrial Revolution. It was not until industry transformed the linen and shipbuilding trades that the economy and the population boomed. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Belfast had transformed into the largest linen producing centre in the world, earning the nickname "Linenopolis".
  Belfast harbour was dredged in 1845 to provide deeper berths for larger ships. Donegall Quay was built out into the river as the harbour was developed further and trade flourished. The Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm was created in 1861 and by the time the Titanic was built in Belfast in 1912, they boasted the largest shipyard in the world.
  The rise of mass-produced and cotton clothing following World War I were some of the factors which led to the decline of Belfast's international linen trade. Like many UK cities dependent on traditional heavy industry, Belfast suffered serious decline since the 1960s, exacerbated greatly in the 1970s and 1980s by the civil unrest of The Troubles. More than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since the 1970s. For several decades, Northern Ireland's fragile economy required significant public support from the British exchequer of up to GB£4 billion per year. Ongoing sectarian violence made it difficult for Belfast to compete with Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy, with Dublin producing some 70bn Euro GDP annually.
caption: Harland and Wolff shipyard in 1907.
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