41 Hamilton Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT2 8LP

41 Hamilton Street is an end-of-terrace, three-storey late-Georgian redbrick townhouse built around 1835, located on the north side of Hamilton Street at its junction with Joy Street in central Belfast. It forms the corner unit of a pair of surviving houses — numbers 39 and 41 — that are the last remaining originals from a terrace of six that once ran between Joy Street and Catherine Street North (formerly numbered 31 to 41 Hamilton Street). The building was sensitively restored around 1985–86 by W. D. R. & R. T. Taggart for the Housing Executive, with most of its historic architectural fabric remaining intact.

The house is square on plan, faces south, and presents a three-storey west side elevation onto Joy Street. The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, hipped at the corner, with a lead ridge and two rebuilt redbrick chimneystacks fitted with clay pots. Rainwater goods consist of ogee-moulded steel guttering on brackets to the brick eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes. The external walls are redbrick laid in Flemish bond, with a rendered plinth course and painted rusticated masonry quoins at the corner. Window openings are square-headed with rendered reveals, painted masonry sills, and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows.

The front south elevation is two windows wide with an off-centre round-headed door opening. This doorway has a projecting moulded rendered surround, a replacement timber panelled door flanked by slender panelled timber pilasters rising to a lintel cornice, and a decorative fanlight above. The door opens onto a tiled step flanked by replacement metal railings set on a low moulded plinth wall, enclosing a small tiled front area. The west side elevation onto Joy Street is also two windows wide and detailed to match the front, except for a single blind bay at ground floor level. Attached to this west elevation is a carved limestone memorial plaque to Joe McCann. The north rear elevation is abutted by the adjoining house at number 26, and the east side elevation is abutted by number 39.

The proportions and detailing of the building are characteristic of the Georgian period, and number 41 contributes significant group value to the surviving pair by retaining the style and scale of the original terrace — making it a rare example of late-Georgian terraced housing in Belfast city centre.

Hamilton Street was developed in the 1830s on land reclaimed through the construction of a paper mill dam along the Blackstaff River at what is now the junction of Ormeau Avenue and Cromac Street. The street took its name from the family name of the Dukes of Abercorn, who resided at number 3 Hamilton Street from 1818. In its early years, the street attracted high-ranking merchant-class residents, many connected to the newspaper and printing trade, but by the 1850s the character of the area had shifted as wealthier residents moved to suburban addresses. The houses on Hamilton Street and neighbouring Joy Street subsequently became home to working-class traders and, owing to their size and proximity to Queen's College (established 1849), also to students and lodgers. A number of properties were converted to boarding houses during this period; on census night at number 41, a "Musical Director" was recorded among the boarders, reflecting the nearby presence of music halls.

The building history of number 41 can be traced in some detail. The First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 shows that numbers 31–35 of the terrace had already been built, with numbers 37–41 likely completed very shortly afterwards. Belfast Street Directories show the terrace was numbered differently in 1843 (as numbers 27–37), at which point number 41 (then number 37) was occupied by a Miss Welsh. By 1852 the house had passed to Henry Kingsmill, a clerk, who was still in residence when Griffith's Valuation recorded the property in 1859 at a value of £18; at that time the terrace was let by a Mr Ebenezer Crawford. Kingsmill remained until 1877, when Robert Crawford took possession briefly before Robert Colclough, a jeweller, moved in in 1879 and appears to have remained until around 1905. The directories also record a Mrs Close in 1901 and a Miss Mary Johnston in 1907. Ownership of the terrace passed from Ebenezer Crawford to a Mrs Charlotte Harding around 1905, at which point the value of number 41 was reduced to £15. The house fell vacant in 1908 but by 1910 a Mrs Ellen McCusker had taken possession. The 1911 Census describes her as a 52-year-old Roman Catholic widow who lived at the address with her son John and four daughters, operating a boarding house; the Census Building Return classified the house as a first-class private dwelling with 11 rooms and no outbuildings. Ellen McCusker remained until at least 1918, and by 1925 her son John McCusker, employed as a pawnbroker, was recorded as the main occupant. He remained until at least 1935, when the first general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland recorded that ownership of the terrace had passed to a Mr Joseph Tyney and the value had increased to £19 10s. From around 1940, a labourer named William Rooney occupied number 41, and his family continued to live there until 1986. Hamilton Street suffered damage during the Belfast Blitz of the Second World War, when the Luftwaffe targeted the nearby shipyard industries and many houses along the street were lost. By 1956 the terrace had come into the possession of a Mr J. R. McKee; a second government revaluation that year put the value of the house at £21. Also by 1956, Mary Rooney — the wife or daughter of William Rooney, employed as a shop assistant — had come into possession of the site and lived there until the restoration works began in 1986.

Numbers 39 and 41 were listed in 1985. Many of the original houses in the terrace, including numbers 31 to 37, were demolished in the mid-1980s; as part of the restoration programme, three sympathetic new redbrick houses were constructed on the site of the demolished properties, linking them to the two surviving originals. These replacement houses were noted to respect the scale of the older buildings, though their use of pivot windows and brick surrounds to the doors was considered a weakness. In 1971, architectural historian C. E. B. Brett described the houses on Hamilton and Joy Streets as "the best example left in the city of late-Georgian Belfast."