Qualla: Royal Belfast Academical Institution

Royal Belfast Academical Institution: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The architect of the Bank of England designed it for free. The first principal had been a United Irishman. The foundation stone was laid by the local Marquess in 1810; the doors opened in 1814 with a speech in which William Drennan - the man who first called Ireland 'the Emerald Isle' - promised that admission would be 'perfectly unbiased by religious distinctions' and that discipline would rely on 'example' rather than 'manual correction or corporal punishment.' Two centuries later the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, known to every Belfast schoolboy simply as Inst, still occupies the same 18-acre site in the city centre. The Doric columns Soane drew were never built - the budget ran out. But the school survived its founders, its founders' politics, and an awful lot of subsequent attempts to close it.

Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Royal Belfast Academical Institution: The Dissident Founders

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. Inst was born out of defeat. In 1798 the United Irishmen rebellion had failed, and many of its leaders - the Belfast Presbyterian reformers, doctors and merchants who had backed Wolfe Tone - were either dead, exiled, or imprisoned. William Drennan, who had drafted the United Iris...

Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

Royal Belfast Academical Institution: Toasts to the French Revolution

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first generation of staff and board members did not hide their politics. At a St Patrick's Day dinner in 1816 chaired by Robert Tennent, board members and staff drank a series of toasts that would have horrified any London official: to the French and South American Revolution...

Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Royal Belfast Academical Institution: Henry Cooke's War

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. Inst's next enemy was internal to Ulster Presbyterianism itself. The conservative preacher Henry Cooke believed Inst's teaching staff combined theological laxity with political subversion. Two professors in particular - Henry Montgomery of the English department and the younger W...

Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Royal Belfast Academical Institution: Three Boys and the Titanic

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JTW 82, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the 1860s two Inst boys left the school at fifteen, having decided that an apprenticeship at Harland and Wolff was a better prospect than the Indian Civil Service exam. William Pirrie eventually became chairman of the shipyard. Alexander Carlisle became its yard manager. In 18...

Image: JTW 82 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Royal Belfast Academical Institution: Through the Bombs

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit yeowatzup, CC BY 2.0. Inst sits in central Belfast immediately next to the Europa Hotel, which during the Troubles became 'the most bombed hotel in the world' - hit 36 times. The school had regular bomb alerts. Pupils evacuated to the front lawn. Yet across the entire thirty-year Troubles, the school ...

Image: yeowatzup | CC BY 2.0