Description: a blog on Irish histories/archaeologies
a blog on Irish histories/archaeologies
In the summer of 1922, police and soldiers carrying out raids in the Grove Street area (off North Queen) reported that “ …the search revealed that the yards on the Grove Street side were tunnelled the whole length of the street, and access to Grove Street could be made from Vere Street through another tunnel. ” ( Belfast Newsletter , 21/8/1922). The photograph above and below shows some of those yard walls in Grove Street and Vere Street (the next street over – note the same man in the cap in both photos),
By the summer of 1922, the discovery of these ‘tunnelled yards’, as they were called, shouldn’t really have been too much of a surprise anymore. In September 1921, the Norfolk Regiment reported that the backyards of houses in Cross Street (which linked Sussex Street to the ends of Grove Street and Vere Street and across to Earl Street) were tunnelled to allow access to and from York Street (see Northern Whig, 26/9/21, the photos above first appeared in the Belfast Telegraph on 20/9/21 – you can read more on