As part of the ‘Look North: North Belfast Festival’, six video interviews were recorded, each 6 minutes long, featuring six of the Cluster Member buildings.

In this interview, Pleasaunce Perry discusses the evolution of the Fredrick Street Quaker Meeting House with Paula Reynolds, chief executive of the Belfast Charitable Society. From its development in 1810, the building has changed considerably, but its original red brick facade on Fredrick Street remains unchanged today. The building played an important role in the community during the Troubles, serving as a space of refuge for people, across the religious divide, who were forced from their homes. This is just one chapter of the Quaker’s extensive history of local charitable service. With the development of the recent Ulster University campus just next door, the Meeting House is now at an interesting junction between the old and new in Belfast.

Pleasaunce offers an fascinating insight into the history of the Quaker religion in Ireland and how the Fredrick Street meeting house fits in with this legacy, watch to the interview below: