Latest news with #Campbell'sCoffeeHouse
Belfast Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
Singing, dancing and City Hall lit up: How Belfast celebrated the end of World War II
Historian Jason Burke charts how the city celebrated the end of the Second World War In his autobiography set in the depressive context of growing up in Belfast during the 1920s and 1930s, poet and writer Robert Greacen invited us to imagine 'a sunny morning in Campbell's during the Second World War'. He was referring to Campbell's Coffee House on the top floor of 8 Donegall Square North which was a venue for cultural gatherings from the 1930s to the 1950s. Here, literary aspirants such as John Boyd and Sam Hanna Bell would congregate; Denis Ireland could often be found there recounting stories and yarns in his unique way. Greacen, however, opted to leave Belfast in 1942 as a result of the war which, by that point had seen the city 'gashed by the Nazi bombers' as he put it. 'After the war, perhaps, change may come… but will the war ever end?' Greacen pondered.
Belfast Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
Singing, dancing and City Hall lit up: How VE Day was celebrated in Belfast
Historian Jason Burke charts how the city celebrated the end of the Second World War In his autobiography set in the depressive context of growing up in Belfast during the 1920s and 1930s, poet and writer Robert Greacen invited us to imagine 'a sunny morning in Campbell's during the Second World War'. He was referring to Campbell's Coffee House on the top floor of 8 Donegall Square North which was a venue for cultural gatherings from the 1930s to the 1950s. Here, literary aspirants such as John Boyd and Sam Hanna Bell would congregate; Denis Ireland could often be found there recounting stories and yarns in his unique way. Greacen, however, opted to leave Belfast in 1942 as a result of the war which, by that point had seen the city 'gashed by the Nazi bombers' as he put it. 'After the war, perhaps, change may come… but will the war ever end?' Greacen pondered.
