Holylands segregation: ‘I thought we were past all of this’ says DUP councillor for area

A DUP councillor has lamented the sharp segregation in Belfast’s Holylands student district, after the News Letter revealed that Catholic students outnumber Protestant ones in the area by 19 to one.
By Adam Kula
Published 21st Nov 2020, 07:51 BST
Some St Patrick's revellers in the Holylands of Belfast during St Patrick's Day 2020Some St Patrick's revellers in the Holylands of Belfast during St Patrick's Day 2020
Some St Patrick's revellers in the Holylands of Belfast during St Patrick's Day 2020

The figures – uncovered as a result of Freedom of Information requests to the Province’s two universities –reinforce the picture of the district as being heavily republican/nationalist in character (something which has been anecdotally reported for years, with huge and raucous St Patrick’s Day celebrations being a particular feature of the densely-populated terraced district).

The data shows that, of all the Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University students living in 18 key Holylands streets, 1,111 were Catholic and 69 were Protestant (which works out at 94.2% to 5.8%).

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Read details here: Whopping 94.2% of students in Holylands are Catholic – with sectarian divide branded ‘depressing’

Councillor Tracy Kelly of the DUP (the only unionist among five councillors representing the city’s Botanic ward where the Holylands falls) told the News Letter: “I’m quite surprised it’s so high. What does it say to a young Protestant student who’d be coming to Belfast – that you wouldn’t go to the Holylands?

“It should be a little more balanced. It is a bit shocking.

We shouldn’t really be permitting having enclaves. I don’t agree with young people having that view – ‘If you are a Catholic, you live here’. I thought we were past all that.”

Both Queen’s and Ulster University were invited to comment, but neither did so.

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It should be noted that all this comes against a backdrop of higher numbers of Catholics attending NI universities than Protestants.

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