The Royal Victoria Hospital or the Royal as it is better known was at one time the site of the Belfast Lunatic Asylum. This building stood about where the Hospital for Sick Children now stands, the Asylum was in use up to 1920 and the last residents were shell shocked service men from World War Two. Some of the most famous  people who have been involved with the hospital have included James Murray who was an Apothecary (Chemist) in the hospital and was the inventor of Milk of Magnesia. One story connected with the official opening involved William Pirrie later Viscount Pirrie, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff ship yard, when the king attended the official opening in 1910 he said to Pirrie "So this fine building is due in part to your fund raising" Pirrie had sold tickets to the launching of the Olympic the sister ship of the Titanic, and had raised what was then a small fortune the sum of £456, when some one it is not recorded who; shouted out  "Yes his wife raised the money for him". The hospital also took over the ground where a public house owned by a Mr. O'Neil stood, this was on the corner of the Falls and Grosvenor Roads. The park facing one of the entrances to the hospital is Dunville Park; this was presented to the City of Belfast by Robert Dunville in 1889.

Royal Victoria Hospital.

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