Hidden Belfast

Book excerpt: Hidden Belfast highlights some of the unique and quirky elements of the city's past and tells the stories of some fascinating rogues and scoundrels that history has overlooked. Discover the intriguing stories behind characters like The Duke of Wellington, Dean Jonathan Swift, Anthony Trollope, James Sheridan Knowles, Sir John Soane (Architect of the Bank of England), James Murray (discoverer of Milk of Magnesia), Dunlop (inventor of the pneumatic tyre), Litvinov (Stalin's Foreign Minister), and Chaim Herzog (the longest serving President of Israel). Their stories show Belfast to have been a place of learning and radical views, especially in the Nineteenth Century when it embraced the industrial revolution and became a world leader in shipbuilding, linen, and cigarette production.