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More about Lisburn

The city is a popular shopping centre, with a wide range of retail outlets both in the Lisburn town centre and in the out-of-town Sprucefield and Sprucefield Park centres. Sprucefield is a major out-of-town retail park at Blaris, on the outskirts of Lisburn and ten miles from Belfast, Northern Ireland. The centre is the only purpose-built out of town centre in Northern Ireland and serves a large catchment area. The area has two distinct developments, the Sprucefield Centre and Sprucefield Park, separated by the A1 road. Also in the town centre is the Irish linen centre and Lisburn Museum, which is free to enter and contains displays about the history of the linen industry (which was a key industry in the history of Ulster).

Lisburn is one of the four constituent cities that makes up the Dublin-Belfast corridor region which has a population of just under 3 million. Lisburn is home to many important political, civil and military bodies with associated infrastructure. Including Thiepval Barracks, the headquarters of the British Army in Northern Ireland and the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Fire Brigade are also located in the town. In elections for the Westminster Parliament the city falls mainly into the Lagan Valley constituency but partly into West Belfast.

Lisburn was originally known as Lisnagarvey (an Anglicisation of Lios na gCearrbhach). Negotiations preceding the American War of Independence between Ben Franklin and Lord Hillsborough took place at Hillsborough. Lisburn's original site was located on what is now known as Hill Street Estate, on a hill above the River Lagan. There was also a fort located at the north side of what is now known as Wallace Park. In 1611 James I granted Sir Fulke Conway the lands of Killultagh in south west County Antrim. During the 1620s the original streets of Lisburn as we know it today were laid out, Market Square, Bridge Street, Castle Street and Bow Street. Sir Fulke Conway brought over many English and Welsh settlers during the Ulster Plantation. He built a manor house on what is now Castle Gardens and in 1623 he built a church on the site of the current cathedral. The Manor House was destroyed in the accidental fire of 1707 and was never rebuilt, a plaque in the Linen Museum marks the inferno. After the fire, Lisnagarvey was renamed Lisburn. Lisburn is one of the constituent cities that makes up the Dublin-Belfast corridor region which has a population of just under 3 million.

Lisburn Urban Area is within Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA)and is classified as a Large Town by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (ie with population between 18,000 and 75,000 people). On census day (29 April, 2001) there were 71,465 people living in Lisburn. Of these: 25.4% were aged under 16 years and 15.6% were aged 60 and over. 52.1% were female and 47.9% were male. 4.0% of people aged 16-74 were unemployed.

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