Andersonstown

Andersonstown, known colloquially as Andytown, is a suburb of west Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the foot of the Black Mountain and Divis Mountain. It contains a mixture of public and private housing and is largely a working-class area with a strong Irish nationalist and Irish Catholic tradition. The area stretches between the Shaws Road, the Glen Road and the Andersonstown Road.

==History== The area is in County Antrim. Historically, it was part of the Barony of Belfast Upper, the parish of Shankill and the townland of Ballydownfine (). However, the original collection of houses known as Anderson's Town centred near the fork of the Glen Road and Falls Road which actually lies within the townland of Ballymurphy (Baile Uí Mhurchú). The area was also known as Whitesidetown after the family that owned the land, but they were dispossessed for the support they gave to the Society of United Irishmen, resulting in a change of name. In 1832, it was described as a village consisting of eleven families, some of whom were named Anderson. The Andersons are likely to have been of Scottish Lowland descent.