“Mr George Wasson has made the Girdwood applications on behalf of the Department for Social Development (DSD) and the names are proposed after the army barracks which were located on this site for a number of years. The names Girdwood Avenue and Girdwood Way were chosen by a local community forum which has representation from the DSD, Belfast City Council and local community groups”. (People and Communities Committee, minutes, 11th August, 2015). Girdwood Avenue was also agreed at this meeting.
According to an obitiuary in the Belfast Newsletter on 27 May 1963, Girdwood Barracks or TA Camp as it was known was named after Major-General Sir Eric Girdwood.
OBITUARY
"Major-General Sir Eric Girdwood
The death has taken place of 86-year-old Major-General Sir Eric Girdwood, who was G.O.C. in Ulster from 1931 until 1935. Sir Eric-Girdwood Park T.A. Centre in Belfast was named after him—was educated at Belfast Royal Academy and St. Malo College, Brittany. He served with the Cape Mounted Rifles, and was commissioned in the 2nd Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) before the outbreak of the Boer War in which he served as a transport officer. He was mentioned in despatches.
He commanded the 156th Infantry Brigade in Egypt and Palestine in 1916 and the 74th Yeomanry Division in Palestine and France between 1916 and 1918. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and was made a C.B. in 1918, and was again mentioned in despatches nine times.
At the end of the war he became Brigade Commander of the 9th Infantry Brigade and Southern Area and of the military forces in Iraq. Later he served for a year as G.O.C. Bombay district before being appointed as Commandant of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was Colonel of the Cameronians from 1927 until 1945. He was given a C.M.G. in 1919, a K.B.E. in 1935, and was Chief Gold Staff Officer at the Coronation of King George VI".