Monthly Archives: February 2019

Ardoyne’s shop fronts are to get a new lease of life with the assistance of the Building Better Futures Fund. The 0.1-acre derelict site has planning permission for a three-storey retail and office development. The Ardoyne Youth Enterprise (AYE), a youth and community development organisation, which reaches out to young people on the streets of Ardoyne and Marrowbone, now hopes to progress their plans to transform this site into a building and space suitable for young people as well as for local businesses. The AYE is one of many beneficiaries that have received a share of the £1m Building Better Futures [...]

John Mattear, brother of Samuel McTier who married Martha Drennan, was a pioneer of medical care for the poor and destitute of Belfast. Mattear studied medicine in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1740s. He returned to Belfast and was the first visiting physician to be appointed to the Belfast Poor House. The infirmary at the Poor House was the only medical relief in Belfast until the Dispensary opened in 1792. An advertisement had been placed in the Newsletter seeking support for Belfast’s first chemist were citizens, particularly the poor and labouring classes, could get medicine at little or no cost. The [...]