English: Mooring Post, Eisenhower Pier A mooring post on Bangor's Eisenhower Pier.

It is marked 'Sirocco' indicating that it was made by the Sirocco Engineering Works, one of Belfast's great engineering companies. Located on the banks of the River Lagan near Short Strand, the company once employed up to 1,500 people. Among its many achievements, the company is credited with the invention of air conditioning and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast became the first building in the world to be fitted with an air conditioning system. Like so many of Belfast's great industrial companies, it slowly began to decline and was eventually sold and closed in 1999 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/464613.stm All of the buildings, save for one lonely chimney, have now been demolished; already one set of (rather bland) apartments have been constructed on the site and there are rumours that the supermarket retailer Asda will open there shortly.

A second link to the Sirocco Works is also evident in this picture:

Just visible at the top right hand side of the photograph is the fine residence 'Seacourt'. Built in 1865 this was the grandest house on Princetown Road and occupies a prime site on Wilson's Point overlooking Bangor Bay. The house was built for the Belfast Linen merchant Foster Connor, but was sold in 1895 for £5,000 to Samuel Cleland Davidson, founder of the Sirocco Works. After his death in 1921, the house remained in his family until 1972.

In a tale ironically reminiscent to that of the Sirocco Works, Seacourt is barely recognisable today compared to its Victorian splendour; it has long since been divided into apartments and the surrounding gardens sold off for development of further housing.

For more information about the Sirocco Works, Samuel Davidson and Seacourt see http://www.koi-hai.com/Larry%20Brown%20book.html

See also the book 'BANGOR: AN HISTORICAL GAZETTEER' by Marcus Patton, published by the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, from which some of the information above has been taken.