This street in Short Strand replaced the earlier Moira Street and appears to be named after the town of Moira in Co. Down. Superficially, it appears to be part of a small group of street-names derived from British and Irish place-names, which originally included Moira Street, Clyde Street, Arran Street and Altcar Street. If so, this would be a rather odd hotch-potch of place-names: an Ulster town, a Scottish island, a Scottish river and a Northern English village. However, there is good reason to believe that these are not simply geographical names, but rather names of, or connected with, a group of peers: Earl of Arran (Irish peerage?), Baron Clyde and the Earl of Sefton's estate at Altcar. It is, therefore, likely that Moira Street too was named after a peer, namely the Earl of Moira.
The title was created in 1761 for John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira. He resided at Moira Castle. In 1805 the 2nd Earl, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, sold the Moira demesne and moved to his Montalto estate near Ballynahinch. As Moira Street was named in 1873, it may have been named after Henry Rawdon-Hastings, the 4th (and last) Earl of Moira, who had died a few years earlier in 1868. He also held titles in the English and Scottish peerage systems, as 4th Marquess of Hastings and 9th Earl of Loudoun. However, it is possible that it was named after an earlier holder of the title or the family in general.
Moira Street had previously been called Francis Street. It was renamed in 1873 (IHTA xvii, 30).
Beranger watercolour of Moira Castle, 1799, at the Royal Irish Academy