Ardmore Park South is situated in the Finaghy area of South-West Belfast, just off Finaghy Road North and close to the railway station.
Ardmore Park South was part of a broader suburban expansion known as the Ardmore Estate, which included adjacent streets such as Ardmore Avenue and Ardmore Park. Most of the housing in this estate was completed shortly after the Second World War, during the housing boom of the mid-1940s.
The development was led by Charles Hutchison, a local builder, who was also associated with a residence known as Ardmore House located near the entrance to the new avenue.
Origin of the Name
The name Ardmore comes from the Irish “Aird Mhór”, meaning “great height” or “high place.” It is also the name of several places in Ireland, most famously a coastal village in County Waterford.
In this case, the name may have been influenced by a residence called Ardmore House, which stood at the head of what became Ardmore Avenue. A 1939 newspaper announcement in the Belfast News-Letter references Ardmore House, Finaghy, confirming the property’s existence before the development of the Ardmore Estate. The house was later linked to Charles Hutchison, the developer of the surrounding streets, and may have lent its name to the estate.
While no official naming decision has been found in surviving records, the association between Ardmore House and the later streets is supported by location and naming customs of the period — it was typical at the time for new housing developments to adopt the names of existing properties in the area.
The name Ardmore Park South takes its name from the Ardmore estate which in turn may be tracecd back to Ardmore House, a local residence that predated the estate, with the Irish name Aird Mhór (“great height”) providing an attractive and resonant identity.