Regional Information
Whitehouse is one of seven villages that originally made up the Belfast suburb of Newtownabbey. Whitehouse takes its name from its earliest surviving evidence of settlement, the 16th century White House.
Up until 1784 Whitehouse was largely dependent on fishing and agriculture. The arrival there of a Lancastrian called Grimshaw, who brought with him the technology of the Industrial Revolution would see Whitehouse become the site of Ireland's first water-powered cotton mill. The arrival of industrialisation brought with it an increase in population As much as a tenth of Belfast's population was employed within Whitehouse. Today Whitehouse is a thriving commercial area.
