Louis MacNeice was born in 1907 in
Belfast, as he notes in the opening lines of "Carrickfergus": {{poemquote| I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams: 'Gantries' refers to the
Harland and Wolff shipyard, and the
Arrol Gantry which dominated the skyline. This was constructed just after MacNiece's birth but was well-known within a few years as the building place of . The 'mountain' is the
Black Mountain, which forms a backdrop to inland Belfast. In November 1907 MacNeice's father,
John MacNeice, was appointed Rector of St Nicholas' Church, Carrickfergus, and in January 1909 the family moved to Carrickfergus, a town ten miles from Belfast on the northern shore of
Belfast Lough: {{poemquote| Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams The little boats beneath the Norman castle, In early 1911 the MacNeices moved into Carrickfergus Rectory, a large house with a garden, "far from the dirt and noise of the harbour, on the other side of town." Here Louis MacNeice spent his childhood until, at the age of ten, he began at
Sherborne Preparatory School,
Dorset: {{poemquote| I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents Contracted into a puppet world of sons "Carrickfergus" also describes a wartime childhood, with rationing and "maps above the fireplace", and a "huge camp of soldiers" in sight of Carrickfergus Rectory. ==Structure==