2 Fitzwilliam Street, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT9 6AW

2 Fitzwilliam Street is a three-storey late Georgian style terraced house of around 1849–50, positioned at the eastern end of a short block of four matching properties. The block sits at the eastern end of the south side of Fitzwilliam Street, with Queen's University Belfast's Student's Union to the south and University Road — where Lanyon's original college building stands — to the west. The front façade faces north.

On the ground floor, to the right, is a four-panel timber door with a rectangular fanlight with margin panes. The doorway has a thin pilaster jamb to the left and a considerably thicker pilaster to the right, which acts as a pier between this doorway and the doorway of No.4. Above the doorway is a hood on simple, somewhat functional-looking metal brackets, which merges with the hood of No.4's doorway and has timber cladding to its edge with a simple cornice. There are two steps up to the door. To the left of the doorway are two windows with plain sash frames and moulded surrounds. Two steps lead up to the doorway.

On the first floor are two similar windows, though without surrounds. These are more widely spaced and not directly in line with those on the ground floor. The first-floor front façade windows of the whole terrace rest on a continuous sill band. On the second floor are two windows similar to those on the first floor and in line with them, but slightly shorter.

The ground floor level is finished in rusticated painted render with a chamfered base and a sill band at first-floor level. Above this, the rest of the front façade is in brick, topped with a dentilled cornice. The left-hand, eastern edge of the front façade is abutted by a high curving wall belonging to — and enclosing the yard of — No.71 University Road.

The eastern gable is blank and finished in plain painted render. It is abutted by a fairly large single-storey gabled return extending from the rear of No.71 University Road. The rear façade of the entire terrace is finished in plain, unpainted cement render.

Nos.2 and 4 share a low, two-storey gabled return, as do Nos.6 and 8. The eastern face of the return at No.2 has a plain sheeted doorway at the centre of the ground floor, with two smallish windows to the left and one to the right; these have modern timber frames and security bars. To the far right on the first floor is a small plain sash window, also with security bars.

The south-facing gable end of the return has a single canted first-floor oriel window to the left and a single sash window to the right. The oriel belongs to No.4; the sash window belongs to No.2 and retains its Georgian pane arrangement of six panes over six. The main rear façade of No.2 has a sash window to the right at each floor, all in line, with the second-floor window slightly shorter than the others. The ground-floor frame is plain, while the first- and second-floor windows have Georgian panes (six over six). The ground- and first-floor windows have security bars.

To the left of these windows, above the return, are two stairwell landing windows, both with sash frames and Georgian panes. The upper window is much shorter and positioned close to the eaves, with three panes over three; the one below has six panes over six.

The roof of the terrace is gabled, finished in Bangor blue slate, with rendered parapets to each gable. Each property has a small Velux window to the rear. There are chimney stacks serving the whole terrace: the eastern stack, belonging to No.2, is rendered and has tall, uniform cream-coloured clay pots; the broader central stack serving Nos.4–6 is partly rendered and has a variety of pots; and the western stack at No.8 is in brick with no pots.

The roof of the return is made up of two gabled sections with a valley between them, concealed behind an all-encompassing end gable. Both sections are covered in Welsh slate and share a brick-built stack at the end gable with two 19th-century-looking octagonal pots. The return roof also has a Velux window on its inner side. Cast iron rainwater goods serve the main house; the returns have mainly PVC rainwater goods.

Fitzwilliam Street was laid out in the 1840s as one of several new thoroughfares linking what was then the Malone Road — now University Road — to the New Lisburn Road, the latter cut in 1817 to replace the Malone Road as the main route southwards out of Belfast. The land had been leased from the Donegall Estate since 1711 by ancestors of a John Alexander, who renewed his title in 1823. In 1849 Alexander leased part of the land to William Magill Collins, a solicitor with offices in Arthur Street; following the break-up of the Donegall Estate, Collins obtained full title to the property in 1866. Shortly after obtaining his initial lease, Collins built the present terrace of Nos.2–8. Like many terraces springing up around the newly built Queen's College, the block was designed to attract Belfast's professional and merchant classes, though the houses were a step well below the grander dwellings of University Square.

Among the earliest tenants, listed in 1854, were Henry Hugh Boyd, described as an agent and accountant; Robert Leadbetter, a linen manufacturer; and James Benn, a wine merchant. Later directories record subsequent tenants in similar occupations well into the 20th century — wine merchants, accountants, dentists, clergymen, company directors, and academics likely connected to Queen's. William Magill Collins died in 1880, and the properties passed to his daughters and their descendants. In 1932 the terrace was conveyed to Queen's University, which appears to have rented the houses to individuals who were probably university staff. By the late 1960s, with the expansion of Queen's academic activities, the properties were given over to various university departments including Italian, Geography, Extra Mural Studies, and the QUB Photographic Society. By 1986 the terrace was largely occupied by the Institute of Irish Studies, with the Faculty of Theology based in No.2. In the same year, significant internal renovation of the whole block was carried out, with doors inserted at first- and second-floor level to link the former dwellings and certain rooms amalgamated. The whole group is presently used by the Institute of Irish Studies.

No.2 itself appears to have been originally rented to Hugh Henry Boyd, listed in the Belfast and Province of Ulster directory of 1854 as an agent and accountant. In 1858 the occupant was William Sherry, a brush manufacturer; in 1861 a Dora Stewart was in residence; and between 1865 and 1877 the house was home to Patrick McGlade, a wine and spirit merchant. From 1877 to 1899 it was occupied by William Bell, apparently another accountant. From 1899 until the sale to Queen's University in 1932, No.2 passed through a number of relatively short-term occupants, including a Mr James McClean, a Captain Battieco, a chemist named Elliot, and between around 1925 and 1932 a Mrs J.M. Bamford. After the University acquired the house it was used as a staff residence, first by a Miss Doherty and then, from around 1940, by a Miss M. Gilmore. The property ceased to function as a dwelling at some point in the late 1960s, and by 1970 was occupied by the Department of Extra Mural Studies and the Department of Italian. By 1986 it had become the offices of the Faculty of Theology, and by the mid-1990s it had been given over, along with the other three houses in the terrace, to the Institute of Irish Studies. Internal alterations carried out in around 1986 linked No.2 to the rest of the terrace.