Campaigners battling to save bar that once sat at the heart of Belfast's slave trade

Campaigners are battling to save an historic pub located at what is thought to have been the heart of Belfast’s slave trade.

Belfast City Council is considering proposals to demolish two landmark pubs in the once-thriving Sailortown area of the city.

The now empty Rotterdam Bar and Pat's Bar, on Pilot Street and Princes Dock Street, have just been put up for sale for £500,000 by DTZ McCombe Pierce.

Both bars have been closed for several years and the Belfast Telegraph reported this week that they are being sold off by administrators.

They could still be demolished under new plans for a 19-storey apartment complex.

Planners are considering the proposals for the complex, which would be built on the site formerly known as the Olympic and the now empty Rotterdam Bar and Pat’s Bar on Pilot Street and Princes Dock Street.

A Save the Rotterdam Facebook page has been launched in hope of holding back the bulldozers and reviving an important piece of Belfast’s history.

President of Belfast Blues Society Rab Braniff, one of the people behind the campaign, says Bob Dylan and Van Morrison are among the stars who once played the popular music venue.

He also says the two bars are believed to be on the site where prisoners were shackled for transportation to the Antipodes.

“It’s supposed to be where they had the prisoners going to Australia,” he said.

“I’ve been told that the part of the city where the Rotterdam is was where the Italian immigrants came into Belfast.

“And if you went upstairs in the Rotterdam, there were these iron rings on the wall - they are supposed to be the rings where people were shackled before they sent them off to Van Diemen’s Land.

“If that is true, if that is the original site, it would make a fantastic tourist attraction where people could see the place where people were put out of Ireland.

“It’s where people were sent from all over Ireland, they were brought in from the south, they were brought in from Newtownards and jailed in Belfast. The Rotterdam site is supposed to be the place where they chained the prisoners.”

Sailortown was one of the first areas of Belfast to be inhabited, with people flocking to the docks for work. At one time, 5,000 people lived in the small area, which drew sailors from across the world.

The area suffered badly during the 1941 Belfast Blitz, and was cleared in the 1960s in an urban redevelopment scheme.

Neither of the vacant bars are listed buildings, and both have been left empty for a number of years.

Campaigners who appealed to the then Department of the Environment to have the Rotterdam listed were told that it didn’t qualify because it wasn’t built before 1837 as the original building was rebuilt following a fire around 1863,

The new designs for the development were produced by Holywood-based Michael Burroughs Associates, with the planning application made in the name of business advisors BDO.

The plans show the new building would be styled to reflect the area's maritime history.

Those behind the scheme said the design would reflect the "profile of a mast and sail being created, bearing a reference to the site's Sailortown and port".

Similar plans were previously submitted, and another scheme was given the green light by the former Department of the Environment in 2011.

A spokesman for Michael Burroughs Associates has said the bars "have been vacant for a number of years now and are beginning to fall into disrepair".

In a design statement, the company spokesman added: "Both public houses have been extended and modified to adapt to the changing nature of the area over the years. As such, much of the original 19th century character of the buildings has been removed."

It also pointed out that the "low building height of both Pat's Bar and the Rotterdam Bar means they are dwarfed by the 14-storey James Clow building" - a large development of apartments that sits opposite the proposed site of the new scheme.

"They have become inconsistent and incompatible with the character of the area, and their redevelopment should be encouraged," the firm said.

The Barrow Square area, which sits between the bars at Clarendon Dock, had originally been designed to form an open-air amphitheatre and to encourage the use of the space by the adjoining bars, once famed for their live music.

Those behind the new apartment development said that with the decline and closure of the bars, those plans are "no longer compatible, and the square now sits empty most of the time and disassociated with any existing building or use in the surrounding area".

Rab Braniff said Pilot Street was once lined with warehouses but they have been replaced with apartments that nobody wants.

“The only thing that can save those bars now is a recession - it will end up being another car park,” he said.

“This is a lovely city and they’ve just destroyed it gradually, pulling it down.

“It would be nice to have a meeting with those planners to find out their criteria and what gives them the right to pull down our buildings.”