Spinner Square is a late 20th-century residential development off Leeson Street in west Belfast. It takes its name from the older Spinner Street, which appears in the records by December 1867, when the Belfast News-Letter reported a “Plan of 15 houses, for Mr. James M’Aloran, in Spinner Street.”
The original Spinner Street lay directly opposite Clonard Flax Spinning Mill (later known as Conway Mill), one of the earliest and most important linen mills on the Falls Road. The name “Spinner” is therefore occupational, referring to the flax spinners who worked in the surrounding mills and formed much of the local population. It belongs to a wider pattern of industrial street-naming in this district, alongside nearby names associated with linen and weaving.
Ordnance Survey maps of the early 20th century show Spinner Street fully built up as part of a dense grid of mill-workers’ housing facing the spinning mill. During later redevelopment of the area, much of this older housing was cleared. Spinner Square was created as part of that regeneration and is documented in street directories by 1993, with residents in place by the mid-1990s.
The name preserves a direct link with the industrial and social history of this part of the Falls Road. In retaining “Spinner,” the development carries forward the memory of the flax-spinning trade that shaped both the landscape and the lives of those who lived and worked here.
Sources
Belfast News-Letter, 3 December 1867 – planning notice: “Plan of 15 houses, for Mr. James M’Aloran, in Spinner Street.” (British Library Newspapers).
Belfast Street Directories:
Belfast and Ulster Directory (1880) – entry for Spinner Street, Falls Road.
Belfast Street Directory (1993) – entries for Spinner Street (“From 156 Falls Road to Lower Clonard Street”) and Spinner Square (“Off Leeson Street”, Postcode BT12 4NW).
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) Historic Maps:
Third Edition (c.1900–1932) – Spinner Street shown fully built, adjacent to Clonard Flax Spinning Mill.
Northern Ireland Place-Name Project, West Belfast Street Names (Queen’s University Belfast) – interpretation that “Spinner” refers to the flax-spinning occupation, given proximity to Conway/Clonard Mill.
Sunday Life, 29 October 1995 – reference to an address in Spinner Square, confirming the square’s existence by the mid-1990s.