Parliament Buildings (Northern Ireland)
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Parliament Buildings, known as Stormont because of its location in the Stormont area of Belfast, served as the seat of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and successive Northern Ireland assemblies and conventions. It is now the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly created under the Belfast Agreement, and also of the Executive Committee or power-sharing cabinet created under the Agreement, in which nationalists and unionists share power in a form of consociational democracy.
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[edit] History
[edit] Original plans
The need for a separate parliament building for Northern Ireland emerged with the creation of the Northern Ireland home rule region in the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. Pending the construction of the new building parliament met in two locations, in Belfast City Hall, where the state opening of the first parliament by King George V took place in on June 21, 1921, and in the nearby Presbyterian Church in Ireland's Assembly's College. In 1922, preparatory work on the chosen site, east of Belfast, began. The original plans for a large domed building with two subsidiary side buildings, housing all three branches of government - legislative, executive and judicial - gave rise to the plural in the official title still used today. Alongside the parliament and "Ministerial Building" the site would have been host to the Northern Ireland High Court.
The plans, reminiscent of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., were scrapped following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and its knock-on effect on the economy of the United Kingdom. Instead, a smaller domeless building designed by Sir Arnold Thornley in the Greek classical style and fronted in Portland stone, was erected on the site. It was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) on 16 November 1932.
[edit] Finished building
After the shelving of plans to build a "Ministerial Building'", the headquarters of government was in effect Stormont Castle, a baronial castellated house in the grounds and which was originally meant to have been demolished to make way for the "Ministerial Building". Stormont Castle served as the official residence of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and was the meeting place for the Northern Ireland cabinet. Another residence, Stormont House served as the official residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland. The reduced plans saw the High Court eventually built in Belfast city centre, and two extra levels being added to Parliament Buildings to serve as extra office space required after the loss of the Ministerial Building.
Two separate chambers were provided in the finished parliamentary complex, the green-benched rectangular House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the red-benched smaller rectangular Senate of Northern Ireland. In the main hall, called the Great Hall, a large gold-plated chandelier was hung. It was a gift from King George V and had originally hung in Windsor Castle, where it had been a gift of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The Kaiser's chandelier had been removed from Windsor and placed in storage during World War I. It was never hung in Windsor again.
The painting, The Entry of King William into Ireland, a gift from the Dutch government to its Northern Ireland counterpart, was hung in the House of Commons when it opened. However, it was removed after having been defaced by a Scottish preacher, who had travelled from Scotland for that express purpose. The reason for his anger was that the painting also showed the Pope, who had blessed William's enterprise. You can see images of the building on its Wikimedia Commons page
The building itself changed little over the years, even as the parliaments meeting inside it did. To camouflage it during World War II the building's Portland stone was painted with supposedly removable "paint" made of bitumen and cow manure. However, after the war, removing the paint proved an enormous difficulty, with the paint having scarred the stonework. It took seven years to remove the "paint", and the exterior facade has never regained its original white color. While most traces of it were removed from the facades (though having done damage that can be seen up close) some of the remains of the paint survive in the inner courtyards and unseen parts of the place.
[edit] Statues
Additional changes to the building and its environs include the erection of a statue to Edward Carson in dramatic pose (on the drive leading up to the building) in 1932, a rare example of a statue to a person being erected before their death, and the erection of a statue to Lord Craigavon in the main foyer, half way up the grand staircase. Craigavon and his wife are buried in the estate grounds.
[edit] Uses for the building
The building was used for the Parliament of Northern Ireland until it was prorogued in 1972. The Senate chamber was used by the Royal Air Force as an operations room during World War II. The building was used for the shortlived Sunningdale power-sharing executive in 1974. Between 1973 and 1998 it served as the headquarters of the Northern Ireland civil service. Between 1982 and 1986 it served as the seat of the rolling-devolution assembly. It is now the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
In the 1990s, Sinn Féin suggested that a new parliament building for Northern Ireland should be erected, saying that the building at Stormont was too controversial and too associated with unionist rule to be used by a power-sharing assembly. However no-one else supported the demand and the new assembly and executive was installed there as its permanent home.
On 3 December 2005, the Great Hall was used for the funeral service of former Northern Ireland and Manchester United footballer George Best. The building was selected for the funeral as it is in the only grounds in Belfast suitable to accommodate the large number of members of the public who wished to attend the funeral. Approximately 25,000 people gathered in the grounds, with thousands more lining the cortege route. It was the first time since World War II that the building has been used for a non-governmental or non-political purpose.
In springtime in 2006 however the building was reopened for political talks between the MLA's from the various political parties in Northern Ireland.
[edit] Security breach
On 24 November 2006, Michael Stone (loyalist paramilitary member from the Braniel estate in Belfast, Northern Ireland) was arrested for breaking into Stormont with an immitation handgun and a knife, and scrawling graffiti on the Parliament building.[1] Initial news reports indicated that he may have been carrying a "suspect device". Later, between six and eight pipe bombs were defused by the Army.[2] The resumption of talks about power sharing and electing a First Minister between the parties at Stormont, which had only just resumed, had to be abandoned.
[edit] The chambers
[edit] House of Commons
The original House of Commons of Northern Ireland was designed in the standard adversarial form, with the government and opposition facing each other in parallel blue benches across a central aisle.
The original House of Commons chamber was slightly redesigned in the 1970s with the addition of a block of curved benches facing the Speakers' chair, along with new curved front benches for some of the remainder of the furnishings, to reduce the advertorial nature of the chamber and provide a symbolic middle ground for middle ground parties.
The entire House of Commons chamber was destroyed by fire on 2 January 1995 which was blamed on an electrical fault in the wiring below the Speaker's chair. Critics alleged arson and noted how the destruction of the chamber allowed the creation of the modern less confrontational chamber used by the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, which has no echo of the earlier seating arrangement. However the British Government, citing the Doyle Report and the findings of the Northern Ireland forensic science laboratory, stated that it was "improbable" that the fire was deliberate.
[edit] Senate
Unlike the new Assembly chamber which replaced the old House of Commons chamber, the Senate chamber, with its red leather adversarial seats in two parallel blocks of benches remains as it was originally designed. Irish damask linen hangs on the walls; plans to line the walls with large oil paintings fell through.
The chamber has not been used as a parliamentary chamber in plenary session since the suspension of devolved government in 1972. The Senate chamber is now to be used as the Northern Ireland Assembly's main committee room, with the only changes since it was first built in 1932 being the installation of TV cameras and microphones and the painting The House Shall Divide of the Northern Ireland Assembly members elected in the first Assembly election in 1998.
[edit] Stormont regulations
The regulations governing the use of the Stormont estate are displayed at its entrance. These were initally enacted on 31 October 1933, in an order by the Ministry of Finance. These were eventually amended and the regulations currently in force are:
- The Stormont Estate Regulations, 1933
- The Stormont Estate Amendment Regulations (Northern Ireland), 1951
- The Stormont Estate Amendment Regulations (Northern Ireland), 1958
[edit] External links
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Stormont Parliament Buildings | Hillsborough Castle | Stormont Castle | Stormont House |
| Irish parliament houses 1600s-present |
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Chichester House 1600s–early 1700s |
