Clarawood is a housing estate in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is located in the east of the city and incorporates the neighbouring Richhill development. Its name is probably derived from An Chlárach (Irish: the place of flat-topped hills).[1] It is located off Knock Road (A55).
Population
Central part of the estate showing the shopsClarawood House flats
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the public housingauthority for Northern Ireland, commissioned and published a report about segregation in the estates; the report was based on national census data gathered between 1971 and 2001 and used 100m cells as the smallest unit. The report included the following figures for Clarawood:[2]: 24, 37, 41, 46, 50
In 1971, 2% Catholic, 94% Protestant, and 3% unknown;
In 1991, 1% Catholic, 83% Protestant, and 17% of which claimed no or another religion;
In 2001, 2% Catholic, 93% Protestant, and 5% claimed no religion.
Facilities
As of 2015[update], the Housing Executive reported on it stock of housing units; it reported that Clarawood contained 591 residences (bungalows, maisonettes, flats, and houses), 313 of which were owned by the Housing Executive and 278 of which had been sold.[3]: 80
Robert Bell Primary School was built to serve about 180 students; as of 1984 it was slated to be closed.[4]
Part of the closed school's facilities were made into a school for children with special needs, the Clarawood School, and part was made into a community centre called the Anne Napier Centre.[5]
As of 2013[update] the Clarawood School provided education for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties; it provided full-time education for 19 children, part-time education for 14 children, and educational support 137 pupils via an outreach program.[6]
The Anne Napier Centre apparently closed around 2004;[5] in 2009 the Clarawood Community Association, which had been formed in 2003 to organize and advocate for the residents of the neighborhood,[7] the Belfast City Council, and the Belfast Education and Library Board came to an agreement to allow the community association to lease the facility for use as a community centre.[5]
The Oak Partnership was formed by several churches and the YMCA in 1999 and in 2002 it opened its Oak Centre in 2 former shops.[8] The Oak Partnership was one of the twenty winners from around Ireland in Cooperation Ireland's Pride of Place awards for 2014.[9]
Environment
Clarawood has its own park called Clarawood Millennium Park[10] that was improved in the late 1990s under a program called "Belfast 2000: A city with a landscape (Northern Ireland)" that was run by the city government in conjunction with the Millennium Commission; the program developed 6 parks, 3 in West Belfast and three in the east, all in areas "which suffered through the Troubles and four of the six
are in areas with high levels of deprivation."[11][12]: 46–48 Clarawood also has its own wood.[13] Many of the estate's trees are protected by a Local Landscape Policy Order.[14]
Flooding periodically affected the bottom of the estate along with much of East Belfast; floods were particularly severe in 2012.[15][16] As a result, the Rivers Agency the city government created a flood alleviation scheme.[16] Part of that scheme included creation of the Connswater Community Greenway Project, which included rerouting the Knock River and the creation of parkland connecting Orangefield Park to Clarawood.[17]
Transport
The estate is served by Translink Metro bus route number 4e Gilnahirk via Bloomfield & Clarawood[18] and an Easibus service to Connswater.[19]
Notable residents
Jim Gray (UDA member), a Northern Irish loyalist and the East Belfast brigadier of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was murdered at his father's home in Clarawood in 2005.[20]
