Belfast commemorates a divided history

Published Monday, 06 August 2012
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A new exhibition has opened at Belfast City Hall, chronicling some of the region's most important events.

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The signing of the Ulster Covenant, Home Rule, the Gaelic revival and the suffrage movement are all detailed in the Decade of Centenaries display.

The rise of volunteer armies - including the Irish Citizen Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force - are included.

Despite happening around 100 years ago, there was concern that looking back at some of the more controversial events could cause tension.

Alliance Councillor Máire Hendron was part of a working group which decided what would be covered, and how.

"We decided we would look at these as events that happened in history. We wanted to put them into their proper context," she explained.

"We wanted to do our best to treat it historically, respectively."

"[The exhibition] put it all into context. I discovered why people wanted to sign the Covenant, because they were opposed to the Home Rule Bill. It made it real to me, it wasn't just out of the history books," she added.

Photographs, archive film footage and artefacts bring the Belfast of 1912-1914 to life and the city's Lord Mayor Gavin Robinson said he was enjoying the exhibition so far.

"It's important that we have the exhibition and that we are able to get consensus around commemorating, celebrating, marking significant centenaries that are going to come this year and in the years that follow.

"While we recognise that we are going to disagree, we still accept that there was significant periods in our history, turbulent though it was, I think it is appropriate that we do respectively remember exactly what the discussions were."

And for the Lord Mayor, the Decade of Centenaries - which is held in Belfast City Hall's east wing - has brought history to life.

"A corridor that we use every day in City Hall was bedecked with tables where people could sign the Covenant and they were let in at 500 a time," he added.

Belfast City Council aimed to put forward a "balanced, historical view" of the events in the exhibition, which is open until February 2013.

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