Ireland has three large cities on its east coast. These are Belfast, Dublin, and Queenstown-Cork. Excepting Londonberry they are the only great seaports Ireland has. Belfast is the largest and the most important port. It is a city of about 400,000 inhabitants, or about the size of Milwaukee. Find Belfast on your map. It is in the north of Ireland in Ulster. Its people are largely Scotch-Irish, and are very thrifty. The wealth of the city lies in its manufacturing, its shipbuilding, and its shipping. It manufactures linen goods, machinery, chemicals, and shipping supplies such as sails and ropes. Belfast is the great center of linen goods. Irish linens are known the world over for their fine quality. The north of Ireland grows much flax. The market for this is in Belfast, and here the factories have sprung up that make this into linens. Sails and ropes made here are also woven from the flax fiber. There are three large shipbuilding yards in Belfast. Here were built such vessels as the Celtic, the Cedric, the Oceanic, and the Baltic. The Baltic is a ship of 23,876 tons, and was the largest ship afloat till 1905. The Celtic, the smallest of the four named, is a vessel of 17,040 tons. What are other great ship-building cities? Where are ships built in the United States? The harbor of Belfast is large and safe. The city stands at the head of a bay at the mouth of the river Lagan. Large docks have been built to take care of the heavy shipping. The yearly commerce of the city is valued at about $60,000,000. Royal Avenue is the newest and finest street in Belfast. It is a broad, modern avenue, and shows well what a fine city Belfast has become. Where is flax grown in the United States? What cloth about your home is made of linen? Keystone ID: 2508 Note: All titles, descriptions, and location coordinates are from the original Keystone Slide documentation as supplied by the Keystone View Company. No text has been edited or changed.