We had chosen Renshaws Hotel in University Street, as it was relatively cheap and close to Queen’s University Belfast, the venue for the education conference we were attending. (As it was the Easter holidays, student accommodation was available, but this did not appeal, due to the lack of double beds and for other reasons obvious to anyone who has stayed in student accommodation.) Unfortunately, the cardkeys which are a staple of modern hotels were not working. We had to ask a member of staff to let us into our room whenever we returned in the evenings.
Although the hotel would probably be classified as basic in these days of Western luxury, its location is its strength. You can spend a lazy morning reading the paper in Starbucks on Botanic Avenue, or a few doors down in Clements Café, which serves possibly the largest hot chocolate in the UK. Local restaurants specialising in Chinese, Thai, Asian fusion and Italian are close at hand, and the city centre is only 15 minutes walk away.
Sunday in the Park with Gerry?
In advance of the conference, we went for a morning stroll in the Botanic Gardens. Although clearly not at their best in April, the Gardens provided a haven of peace in a busy city. A few pensioners walked their dogs, but I saw no students or paramilitaries behind any bushes, thus ruining the chances of recounting an experience of Sunday in the Park with Gerry (or Ian or anyone else). However, colleagues who took an organised excursion to view some of the political murals from the times of the Troubles swore that they got a glimpse of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
We were unlucky. The biting cold turned the rain into sleet and even briefly snow. Our time was also limited by a visit to the Old Bushmills Distillery, which claims to be the world’s oldest licensed distillery and will celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2008. Whiskey drinkers may be fascinated; I was not. Struggling back up the pathway, cold and wet, to our coach, I felt some sympathy with Dr Samuel Johnson’s summary of the Causeway as “worth seeing, but not worth going to see”. But don’t be put off: it is worth going to see. You need more than the hour we had, though.
So is Belfast City Hall, for different reasons. 2006 was the centenary of its opening. Queen Victoria conferred city status on Belfast in 1888 and a new City Hall was built, on the site of the old White Linen Hall, to reflect Belfast’s enhanced prestige. The result is an ode to classical Renaissance architecture, using three Italian marbles and rich reds and creams to create beautiful staircases and a rotunda. The Whispering Gallery – so called because a whisper against its walls is audible on the other side - is apparently very alike to that in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The 51 members of Belfast City Council sit on either side of the Council Chamber, with a table for journalists between the two sides - directly in the crossfire, as it were. The reception, banqueting and Great Halls are a pleasing combination of vaulted oak; stained glass windows showing coats of arms and various themes such as the Famine Window to remember all those who died from famine-related diseases; and even (replica) chandeliers with a nautical theme.
For all the grandeur of the building, its inhabitants remain cheerily informal. When asked whether photography was permitted, a security guard said: “It’s compulsory!” In less than an hour, we met both the deputy Mayor and Lord Mayor, who were happy to exchange a brief word or two. As the Lord Mayor did so, a door opened behind him. Out of the office behind the door stumbled an unshaven young man, with a vacant expression, a rolling gait and a tie at half mast. If he had met this gentleman, Oscar Wilde - who went to school in Belfast - might have amended one of his aphorisms to “only dull people are brilliant before noon.”
Schizoid building
The next couple of days were spent in Queen’s University itself at the conference. The perhaps unintended highlight was the fact of a keynote speech on New Labour and higher education being immediately followed by a speech (on organisational management methods) entitled “How to lose friends and turn people against you”. The University itself reflects modern Belfast with an architectural version of schizophrenia. The main buildings, completed in 1843, are classic Victorian redbrick. In an echo of early reaction to Belfast City Hall’s Whispering Gallery, the architect was accused at the time of plagiarising the design for the University’s main tower from Magdalen College Oxford. The more modern additions – concrete monstrosities of tower blocks - do not exactly fit with the character of their surroundings.
Nearby is the Belfast Waterfront Hall, a performing arts and concert venue which was hosting the World Irish Dancing Championships that week. Inside, hordes of young dancers kept their arms resolutely by their sides as they flapped their legs frantically, like the secret love children of the Minister for Silly Walks.
Samson and Goliath
There was much talk, and some evidence, of major property redevelopments in the city, such as an entertainment centre planned on the theme of the Titanic – which was built in Belfast. It may seem odd for the city to be looking to make money out of a famous disaster, but as one local is said to have told a sceptical tourist: “The ship was all right when it left Belfast.” In the meantime, Samson and Goliath – the two giant cranes used by Harland and Wolff in the city’s shipbuilding heyday – continue to loom over the city.
It remains to be seen whether Belfast can harness its past to reinvent a prosperous future. However, a recent report on tourism trends indicates that visitors to Northern Ireland are staying longer and spending more than before. So the peace dividend has not yet disappeared. Perhaps, for Belfast, the worst of times are over and the best is about to come. Let’s hope so.
First published in VISA issue 71 (Feb 2007).
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