"Sugarhouse Entry is so called because it was here the principal sugarhouse was situated. In 1750 there were two sugarhouses in Belfast. One was in Rosemary Lane (see Legg's Lane), the other in Waring Street and Sugarhouse Entry.
The latter dated from at least 1683, as proved by the will of George Macartney, a great leader of trade at that date:- I leave and bequeath to my sons, Arthur and Chichester, all that my moiety of all the Sugar House in Belfast and all the details thereof....together with the house and lands called Wilkin's tenement, on which I have built an addition to the said Sugar House" (John J. Marshall, Belfast Telegraph, 09/01/41).
There is another side to the story of the sugarhouses. Sugar was imported from the Caribbean, which in the eighteenth century meant that it was grown and harvested by slaves. It was one of a number of such products, including rum, molasses. tobacco and cotton, which some people refused to consume on moral grounds. Belfast was one of the few ports in Britain and Ireland which was not directly involved in the transatlantic slave trade, but nevertheless Belfast merchants benefitted by importing slave-produced goods and exporting return goods, such as foodstuffs, linen clothing and shoes for the slaves.