Cregagh - Cregagh Estate

Cregagh Estate

The Cregagh Estate is located off the Cregagh Road, starting after the roundabout junction with Ladas Drive and Mount Merrion Avenue. The junction is immediately after Bell's Bridge which crosses the River Loop, one of Belfast's myriad minor rivers. The estate was built as a public housing project in 1946-1947 and was designed by government architect T. F. O. Rippingham. Tenants have subsequently been offered the opportunity to purchase their homes. The estate is characterised by its uncommon flat roofs and staggered house fronts. The streets in the Cregagh Estate are named after the rivers and streams of Ireland (e.g. Callan Way, Kilbroney Bend).

Although predominantly Protestant from its inception Cregagh had a significant Catholic minority for a number of years and at the start of the Troubles Catholics even joined in local vigilante patrols under the auspices of the Cregagh Tenants Association. This co-operation ended in 1972 with the arrival of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and before long most of the Catholic residents had left the area for west Belfast. Around this time housing allocation in the area came under UDA control and the local "Tartan gangs" were taken over as the junior UDA. Subsequently however the UDA declined in the area, and east Belfast in general, and the Ulster Volunteer Force became more important, with UVF murals being painted on Cregagh's walls. Contemporaneously however the only murals on Cregagh estate are one commemorating Victoria Cross winners Eric Norman Frankland Bell, Geoffrey Cather, William McFadzean and Robert Quigg and another showing local boy George Best.