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Grand Central Hotel Belfast

1893 establishments in Ireland2018 establishments in Northern IrelandBuildings and structures in BelfastCommons category link is locally definedEngvarB from April 2023
Hotel buildings completed in 1893Hotels established in 1893Hotels established in 2018Hotels in BelfastNorthern Ireland building and structure stubsSkyscrapers in Northern IrelandUnited Kingdom hotel stubs

The name Grand Central Hotel Belfast refers to two separate hotels at different locations in the city. The first opened in 1893 and was converted to a military barracks in 1972, before being demolished in the late 1980s. The second is a converted office building nearby, previously known as Windsor House, which was converted to a hotel and opened on 20 June 2018.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Grand Central Hotel Belfast (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Grand Central Hotel Belfast
Bedford Street, Belfast Donegall Pass

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Wikipedia: Grand Central Hotel BelfastContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 54.5952 ° E -5.9315 °
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Grand Central Hotel

Bedford Street 9-15
BT2 7EG Belfast, Donegall Pass
Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
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Windsor House (Belfast)
Windsor House (Belfast)

Windsor House (officially known as 9-15 Bedford Street) was a 23-story, 80 m high-rise building on Bedford Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The building was the tallest storeyed building in Northern Ireland before being surpassed by Obel Tower (also in Belfast) and stands at 85 metres (279 feet) tall, with 28 floors. The total structural height is actually taller than the Obel, if you include the two plant floors and radio mast it stands at 93m(305ft) tall. Constructed in 1974 as an office building, Windsor House has a tall green elevator shaft and green side wall facade, as well as satellite and aerial masts, which stand a further seven metres in the air. The building was badly damaged in an IRA bombing in 1992. It was sold for £30m in 2006 to County Cavan building firm P Elliot. In March 2007 plans were made to convert the building into a block of flats. However, the conversion plans fell through. In May 2015, Hastings Hotel Group, an NI-based hospitality company, purchased the building for £6.5m. A planning application was submitted on 23 June 2015, proposing refurbishment, partial demolition and rebuilding, extension and change of use of Windsor House for a hotel (304 bedrooms) with associated restaurant and bar facilities (on ground to 15th floor) and 18 serviced hotel apartments on the 16 and the 17th floors; creation of new retail unit on ground floor overlooking Franklin Street; retention and refurbishment and extension of office use (25,000 ft2) on upper floors (18th to 22nd floor). The planning application was approved 20 October 2015 and redevelopment work commenced in July 2016. Following a £30m refurbishment, the new hotel opened in 2018 as the Grand Central Hotel.

Northern Bank robbery
Northern Bank robbery

On 20 December 2004, a total of £26.5 million in cash was stolen from the headquarters of Northern Bank on Donegall Square West in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Having taken family members of two bank officials hostage, an armed gang forced the workers to help them steal used and unused pound sterling banknotes. The money was loaded into a van and driven away in two trips. This was one of the largest bank robberies in the history of the United Kingdom. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the Independent Monitoring Commission, the British government and the Taoiseach (prime minister of the Republic of Ireland) all claimed the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was responsible. This was denied by the IRA and by Sinn Féin. Throughout 2005, the police forces in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland made arrests and carried out house searches. A sum of £2.3 million was impounded at the house of a financial adviser, Ted Cunningham, in County Cork and Phil Flynn was forced to resign as chairman of the Bank of Scotland (Ireland), because he was a director of one of Cunningham's companies. Cunningham was convicted in 2009 of money laundering, had his conviction quashed in 2012 and was convicted at retrial in 2014. Chris Ward, one of the bank officials threatened by the gang, was himself arrested in November 2005 and charged with robbery. The prosecution then offered no evidence at trial and he was released. Northern Bank announced soon after the heist that it would replace its £10, £20, £50 and £100 notes. Alongside the murder of Robert McCartney, the robbery adversely affected the Northern Ireland peace process. It caused a hardening in the relationship between the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the Sinn Féin representatives Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Although Cunningham and several others were eventually convicted of crimes uncovered during the investigation, nobody has ever been held directly responsible for the robbery.

Belfast Cenotaph
Belfast Cenotaph

The Belfast Cenotaph is a war memorial in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in Donegall Square West, to the west of Belfast City Hall. Like the City Hall, it was designed by Sir Alfred Brumwell Thomas. The cenotaph was unveiled in 1929. It became a Grade A listed building in 1984.The memorial includes a central Portland stone monument about 30 feet (9.1 m), with bronze brackets on either side supporting flagpoles. The top of the monument has carved laurel wreaths, symbolising victory and honour. It bears several inscriptions: on the north side: "PRO DEO / ET / PATRIA // ERECTED BY / THE CITY / OF / BELFAST / IN MEMORY OF / HER / HEROIC SONS / WHO MADE / THE SUPREME / SACRIFICE / IN / THE GREAT WAR / 1914–1918 // THROUGHOUT THE LONG YEARS OF STRUGGLE WHICH / HAVE NOW SO GLORIOUSLY ENDED THE MEN OF ULSTER / HAVE PROVED HOW NOBLY THEY FIGHT AND DIE / GEORGE R.I." and on the south face: "THEY DEDICATED THEIR LIVES TO A GREAT CAUSE AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS BY LAND, SEA AND AIR WON UNDYING FAME".The monument stands on three steps. To the south is an arc of paired Corinthian columns forming a 25 feet (7.6 m)–high colonnade. To the north is a sunken garden of remembrance, which since 2011 has been the location for an annual Field of Remembrance. The paving of the garden was renewed in 1993. The memorial was completed in 1927 and was officially unveiled by Viscount Allenby on 11 November 1929. No Catholic organisations participated in the formal unveiling ceremony, but veterans from the 16th (Irish) Division laid a wreath after the ceremony ended, and participated the following year.In addition to the usual Remembrance Sunday services, there are also annual ceremonies to remember the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July. Controversially, the first Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast Alex Maskey laid a wreath on 1 July 2002.Nearby are memorials to the service of Irish regiments in the Boer War and the Korean War, and to US forces who arrived in Northern Ireland in 1942.

Belfast
Belfast

Belfast ( BEL-fast, -⁠fahst; from Irish: Béal Feirste [bʲeːlˠ ˈfʲɛɾˠ(ə)ʃtʲə], meaning "mouth of the sand-bank ford") is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open seas through Belfast Lough and the North Channel. It is the 10th-largest primary urban area in the United Kingdom and the second-largest city in the island of Ireland. In 2021, Belfast City had a population of 293,300, and a metro area population of 634,600.From its origins as an English settlement in the early 16th century, in the 18th Belfast developed as a largely Scottish Presbyterian textile centre and port. At odds with Dublin's Anglican establishment, the town's radical politics contributed to the Irish rebellion of 1798. By the time it was granted city status in 1888, Belfast was a global leader in linen production, and had a large engineering sector centered on Harland & Wolff, at the turn of the new century the world's largest shipyard. Rapid industrial expansion and inward migration was accompanied by a sectarian politics that pitted Protestants, committed to the post-rebellion union with Great Britain, and a growing, nationalist, Catholic minority. Tensions twice broke out in periods of intense violence that, in their time, were both referred to as "the Troubles": in 1920-22, as Belfast emerged as the capital of the six Irish counties remaining in the United Kingdom, and over three decades from the late 1960s during which the British Army was continually deployed on the streets. A legacy of conflict is the barrier-reinforced separation of the city's loyalist and republican districts. Since the 1998 Belfast Agreement, the electoral balance in the city of has shifted from unionists to nationalists. At the same time, immigrants have joined a growing share of residents unwilling to identify with either of the main traditions. Belfast today has a largely service economy, with important contributions from financial technology (fintech), tourism and film. It retains a port with commercial and industrial docks, including a reduced Harland & Wolff shipyard and aerospace and defence contractors. It is served by two airports: George Best Belfast City Airport in the Harbour Estate, and Belfast International Airport 15 miles (24 kilometres) west of the city.