Skip to main content
N I Direct government services

Main navigation

  • Home
  • News
  • Contacts
  • Help
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • RSS

Translation help

Translate this page

Select a language

  • Afrikaans — Afrikaans
  • Albanian — Shqip
  • Amharic — አማርኛ
  • Arabic — العربية
  • Armenian — Հայերեն
  • Assamese — অসমীয়া
  • Aymara — Aymar aru
  • Azerbaijani — Azərbaycan dili
  • Bambara — Bamanankan
  • Basque — Euskara
  • Belarusian — Беларуская
  • Bengali — বাংলা
  • Bhojpuri — भोजपुरी
  • Bosnian — Bosanski
  • Bulgarian — Български
  • Cantonese — 廣州話
  • Catalan — Català
  • Cebuano — Sinugbuanong Binisayâ
  • Chichewa — Chichewa
  • Chinese (Simplified) — 简体中文
  • Chinese (Traditional) — 繁體中文
  • Corsican — Corsu
  • Croatian — Hrvatski
  • Czech — Čeština
  • Danish — Dansk
  • Dhivehi — ދިވެހި
  • Dogri — डोगरी
  • Dutch — Nederlands
  • English — English
  • Esperanto — Esperanto
  • Estonian — Eesti
  • Ewe — Eʋegbe
  • Filipino — Filipino
  • Finnish — Suomi
  • French — Français
  • Frisian — Frysk
  • Galician — Galego
  • Georgian — ქართული
  • German — Deutsch
  • Greek — Ελληνικά
  • Guarani — Avañe’ẽ
  • Gujarati — ગુજરાતી
  • Haitian Creole — Kreyòl ayisyen
  • Hausa — Hausa
  • Hawaiian — ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi
  • Hebrew — עברית
  • Hindi — हिन्दी
  • Hmong — Hmoob
  • Hungarian — Magyar
  • Icelandic — Íslenska
  • Igbo — Asụsụ Igbo
  • Ilocano — Ilokano
  • Indonesian — Bahasa Indonesia
  • Irish — Gaeilge
  • Italian — Italiano
  • Japanese — 日本語
  • Javanese — Basa Jawa
  • Kannada — ಕನ್ನಡ
  • Kazakh — Қазақ тілі
  • Khmer — ភាសាខ្មែរ
  • Kinyarwanda — Ikinyarwanda
  • Konkani — कोंकणी
  • Korean — 한국어
  • Krio — Krio
  • Kurdish (Kurmanji) — Kurdî
  • Kurdish (Sorani) — کوردی
  • Kyrgyz — Кыргызча
  • Lao — ລາວ
  • Latin — Latina
  • Latvian — Latviešu
  • Lingala — Lingála
  • Lithuanian — Lietuvių
  • Luganda — Luganda
  • Luxembourgish — Lëtzebuergesch
  • Macedonian — Македонски
  • Maithili — मैथिली
  • Malagasy — Malagasy
  • Malay — Bahasa Melayu
  • Malayalam — മലയാളം
  • Maltese — Malti
  • Maori — Māori
  • Marathi — मराठी
  • Meiteilon (Manipuri) — ꯃꯤꯇꯩ ꯂꯣꯟ
  • Mizo — Mizo ṭawng
  • Mongolian — Монгол хэл
  • Myanmar (Burmese) — မြန်မာစာ
  • Nepali — नेपाली
  • Norwegian — Norsk
  • Odia (Oriya) — ଓଡ଼ିଆ
  • Oromo — Afaan Oromoo
  • Pashto — پښتو
  • Persian — فارسی
  • Polish — Polski
  • Portuguese — Português
  • Punjabi — ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
  • Quechua — Runa Simi
  • Romanian — Română
  • Russian — Русский
  • Samoan — Gagana Samoa
  • Sanskrit — संस्कृतम्
  • Scots Gaelic — Gàidhlig
  • Sepedi — Sepedi
  • Serbian — Српски
  • Sesotho — Sesotho
  • Shona — Shona
  • Sindhi — سنڌي
  • Sinhala — සිංහල
  • Slovak — Slovenčina
  • Slovenian — Slovenščina
  • Somali — Soomaali
  • Spanish — Español
  • Sundanese — Basa Sunda
  • Swahili — Kiswahili
  • Swedish — Svenska
  • Tajik — Тоҷикӣ
  • Tamil — தமிழ்
  • Tatar — Татар теле
  • Telugu — తెలుగు
  • Thai — ไทย
  • Tigrinya — ትግርኛ
  • Tsonga — Xitsonga
  • Turkish — Türkçe
  • Turkmen — Türkmençe
  • Twi — Twi
  • Ukrainian — Українська
  • Urdu — اردو
  • Uyghur — ئۇيغۇرچە
  • Uzbek — Oʻzbekcha
  • Vietnamese — Tiếng Việt
  • Welsh — Cymraeg
  • Xhosa — IsiXhosa
  • Yiddish — ייִדיש
  • Yoruba — Yorùbá
  • Zulu — IsiZulu
  • Breadcrumb

    1. Home
    2. Family, home and community
    3. Family history, heritage and museums
    4. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
    5. Search the archives online
    6. Street directories
    PRONI - Public Record Office of Northern Ireland

    About Street Directories

    Street directories are printed volumes listing names of individuals and/ or businesses. Most directories have details for Belfast and for the principal towns and villages in Ulster.

    What street directories are

    Street directories are printed volumes listing names of individuals and/or businesses. Street Directories for Ulster begin to appear in the early 19th century. They were published for trade and business purposes largely as a result of the growth in trade at home and with the wider world, hence the emphasis on the listing of manufacturers, traders and merchants. This is illustrated by the title of Thomas Bradshaw's 1820 Directory (the earliest of the directories to feature on this website) - "...General and Commercial Directory" - which includes a list of English, Scottish and Irish bankers.  

    The work of compiling the directories was complex and time consuming. This was a consequence of, for example, people moving and changing addresses and the re-numbering and/ or re-naming of streets in Belfast due to its huge growth - Belfast was one of the fastest growing cities in Europe in the late 19th century. Often the information was out of date by the time the directory was published, although the publishers did make an effort to include additions and removals in the directory even if received at a late stage in the publication.

    • Search Street Directories

    Content

    Most directories have details for Belfast and for the principal towns and villages in Ulster.  

    Some (for example the 1831-2 Directory and Matier's 1835-6 Directory) feature only Belfast, but will also generally include a list of the gentry in the neighbourhood. These 'village directories' include a list of the principal inhabitants living on the outskirts of Belfast, for example in Dunmurry, Jordanstown and Newtownbreda, as well as an alphabetical listing of 'Country Residents'.

    Occasionally the directory is only for some provincial towns, for example the 1840 New Commercial Directory of Armagh, Newry, Londonderry. 

    Layout

    Directories generally follow a similar layout - the database enables you to limit your search to particular sections of a directory.

    Belfast

    Belfast features at the start of each Belfast and Ulster directory with an historical description and statistics of the borough. This is followed by a very comprehensive listing of public boards and government offices, charitable and benevolent institutions, educational establishments, literary and scientific societies and religious missions, societies and churches.

    Next is an alphabetical listing of the principal inhabitants, for example merchants or shopkeepers, and their addresses - a listing of same by street and a listing of people by profession and trade.

    Provincial section

    The provincial section of the directories usually has a section giving a description of the county - trade, population, administrative divisions, and principal institutions and office holders. This is followed by the provincial towns section, with each town having an introduction giving a history and description of the town and listing the institutions and office holders.

    Institutions that feature regularly are churches, schools, courts, the constabulary, post offices, infirmaries and asylums, prisons and workhouses. For each town there is a list of the nobility and gentry, clergy, professional people, traders and merchants, along with their addresses. There is no street listing for the provincial towns and not everyone who lived in the town or village will be listed.

    Almost all the directories include advertisements for goods, services and commercial activities, either at the beginning or end of the directories and also throughout the volumes. Advertisements were one way of paying for the costs of producing the directories.

    Street directories you can search in this application

    The street directories featured on this website consist of scanned copies of those original volumes held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) covering the years 1819 to 1900. It should be noted that this is not a comprehensive database as PRONI does not have copies of all street directories published before 1852. Even when the main run of the "Belfast and Ulster Street Directory" commences in 1852 there are gaps in the series up to 1900.  

    These volumes, which were previously on open access in the Search Room in PRONI, were very heavily used and the paper in some of the volumes is very fragile. They were therefore at risk as pages or parts of pages had already been lost or damaged and further handling would have endangered their long term preservation. As such, it was decided to scan the directories and to provide a search facility to find keywords in a section of a directory, in a particular directory or in any directories.

    List of directories scanned:

    • Bradshaw's General and Commercial Directory for 1819
    • Belfast Directory 1831-32
    • Matier's Belfast Directory 1835-36
    • Martin's Belfast Directory 1839
    • Martin's Belfast Directory 1841-42
    • New Directory of the City of Londonderry and Coleraine, including Strabane with Lifford, Newtownlimavady, Portstewart and Portrush
    • The New Commercial Directory of Armagh, Newry, Londonderry, Drogheda, Dundalk, Monaghan, Omagh, Strabane, Dungannon, Lisburn, Lurgan, Portadown and neighbouring towns
    • Martin's Belfast Directory 1842-43
    • Henderson's New Belfast and Northern Repository 1843-44
    • Henderson's Belfast Directory and Northern Repository 1846-47
    • Henderson's Belfast Directory and Northern Repository 1850
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1852
    • Henderson's Belfast Directory and Northern Repository 1852
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1858-59 Volume 4
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1863-64 Volume 6
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1865
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1866
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1870
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1877
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1880
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1884
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1887
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1890 Volume 13
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1892
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1895 Volume 16
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1896
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1897
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1899 Volume 20
    • The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1900

    More useful links

    • PRONI - Public Record Office of Northern Ireland 
    • Family and local history records
    • Family history, heritage and museums
    Share this page Share on Facebook (external link opens in a new window / tab) Share on X (external link opens in a new window / tab) Share by email (external link opens in a new window / tab)

    Street directories

    • About Street Directories
    • Search Street Directories

    Help improve this page - send your feedback

    What do you want to do?
    Report a problem
    Which problem did you find on this page? (Tick all that apply)

    Messages

    You will not receive a reply. We will consider your feedback to help improve the site.

    Don't include any personal or financial information, for example National Insurance, credit card numbers, or phone numbers.

    What is your question about?

    What to do next

    Comments or queries about angling can be emailed to anglingcorrespondence@daera-ni.gov.uk 

    If you have a comment or query about benefits, you will need to contact the government department or agency which handles that benefit.  Contacts for common benefits are listed below.

    Carer's Allowance

    Call 0800 587 0912
    Email 
    dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

    Discretionary support / Short-term benefit advance

    Call 0800 587 2750 
    Email 
    customerservice.unit@communities-ni.gov.uk

    Disability Living Allowance

    Call 0800 587 0912 
    Email dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

    Employment and Support Allowance

    Call 0800 587 1377

    Jobseeker’s Allowance

    Contact your local Jobs & Benefits office

    Personal Independence Payment

    Call 0800 587 0932

    If your query is about another benefit, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

    Comments or queries about the Blue Badge scheme can be emailed to bluebadges@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk or you can also call 0300 200 7818.

    For queries or advice about careers, contact the Careers Service.

    For queries or advice about Child Maintenance, contact the Child Maintenance Service.

    For queries or advice about claiming compensation due to a road problem, contact DFI Roads claim unit.

    If you can’t find the information you’re looking for in the Coronavirus (COVID-19) section, then for queries about:

    • Restrictions or regulations — contact the Department of Health
    • Travel advice (including self-isolation) — contact the Department of Health
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations — contact the Department of Health or Public Health Agency

    If your query is about another topic, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

    For queries about your identity check, email nida@nidirect.gov.uk and for queries about your certificate, email covidcertni@hscni.net.

    For queries or advice about criminal record checks, email ani@accessni.gov.uk

    Application and payment queries can be emailed to ema_ni@slc.co.uk

    For queries or advice about employment rights, contact the Labour Relations Agency.

    For queries or advice about birth, death, marriage and civil partnership certificates and research, contact the General Register Office Northern Ireland (GRONI) by email gro_nisra@finance-ni.gov.uk

    For queries about your GRONI account, email gro_nisra@finance-ni.gov.uk.

    For queries about the High Street Spend Local Scheme,  email HSSS.mail@economy-ni.gov.uk.

    For queries about:

    • Car tax, vehicle registration and SORN
      contact the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Swansea
       
    • Driver licensing and tests, MOT and vehicle testing
      contact the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA), Northern Ireland

    If your query is about another topic, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

    For queries about your identity check, email nida@nidirect.gov.uk.

     

    For queries or advice about passports, contact HM Passport Office.

    For queries or advice about Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), including parking tickets and bus lane PCNs, email dcu@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk

    For queries or advice about pensions, contact the Northern Ireland Pension Centre.

    If you wish to report a problem with a road or street you can do so online in this section.

    If you wish to check on a problem or fault you have already reported, contact DfI Roads.

    For queries or advice about historical, social or cultural records relating to Northern Ireland, use the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) enquiry service.

    For queries or advice about rates, email LPSCustomerTeam@lpsni.gov.uk

    For queries or advice about  60+ and Senior Citizen SmartPasses (which can be used to get concessionary travel on public transport), contact Smartpass - Translink.

    If you have a question about a government service or policy, you should contact the relevant government organisation directly.  We don't have access to information about you.

    Related sites

    • gov.uk
    • nibusinessinfo.co.uk

    Links to supporting information

    • Accessibility statement
    • Crown copyright
    • Terms and conditions
    • Privacy
    • Cookies
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • RSS