Beechmount Avenue / Ascaill Ard na bhFeá

Beechmount Avenue / Ascaill Ard na bhFeá

“That on application of the owners The Executors of Riddell (space in minutes) five new streets situate off Falls Road be named Ballymurphy Street, Beechmount Avenue, Clowney Street, Felspar Street and Mica Street”. Minutes, Town Improvement Committee, 16th March 1898. According to Dean in his book on The Gate Lodges of Ulster. A Gazetteer there was Beechmount, “pre 1832. To an antique house of the Wallace family a lodge directly opposite the entrance to Willowbank Cottage (qv). Later a property of the Riddel family and now a convent”. (p4). “Beechmount Lane off the Falls Road” features in The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory (1884). Beechmount reportedly got its name from the beech trees, which were plentiful in the area, particularly in and around the grounds of the private estate that came to be known as Beechmount House, then Riddell’s Desmense ,and then