Stormont 'sanitised' of Union emblems

Published Wednesday, 15 February 2012

TUV leader Jim Allister has accused the Assembly Commission of "sanitising" Stormont of any Unionist emblems.

The portrait by Lydia de Burgh has been moved to Hillsborough. (© UTV)

Mr Allister was talking specifically about a table on which the Act of the Union was signed on in 1800, which is currently being held in storage.

Meanwhile a portrait of the Queen by the Irish painter Lydia de Burgh, which used to hang in Parliament Buildings, is now at Hillsborough Castle.

The North Antrim MLA wants the items put back on display.

"Under the current regime there has been a sanitising of Stormont of any artefact which tends towards support of the union," Mr Allister told UTV.

"Notable in that is, for example, the table which the Act of Union was signed upon which used to stand in this hall and a portrait of Her Majesty, a very beautiful portrait by the artist de Burgh, which has been removed.

"Now of course we are into the diamond jubilee and it seems a very appropriate time to ask how we can celebrate if the primary building in Northern Ireland, Parliament Buildings, is cleansed of every last portrait of her."

In a statement, the NI Assembly told UTV a number of items were removed in 1995.

It said: "Following a serious fire in Parliament Buildings in late 1995, a full refurbishment programme was undertaken.

"This involved the removal of a number of artefacts, to long term storage, in advance of a re-painting and renovation programme over the period 1996 - 1998.

"Any future display of artefacts and memorabilia will be a matter for the Assembly Commission to consider, in discussion with the Political Parties and consistent with Section 75 (2) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 Good Relations duties."

Comments

22 Comments

John McC in Belfast wrote (98 days ago):

This region is obsessed with symbols which appear to be more important to politicians than the many thousands of young people without work or prospects. Recently I visited a number of shops in Belfast and was amazed at the number of products on sale from the far east, especially China. Even the expensive 'House of Fraser' is dominated by Chinese-made clothing. Politicians should be concentrating on getting manufacturing jobs into areas of high unemployment rather than arguing over symbols. If unionist voters were offered £100 per family or a nice commemorative diamond jubilee print, I know what they would go for.

rob in Belfast wrote (98 days ago):

Jim Allister is correct ,the DUP got into power by having a mandate of No Terrorists in Government, once they got into power that was forgotten and they rolled over to Marty and co ( the chuckle bros ,,,, make you sick ), so now we have the house of Northern Irish government unable to fly the union flag ,pictures being removed etc all because they offend some people ,who by the way are not offended when paid with the currency of the crown .

William in United Kingdom wrote (98 days ago):

What planet does 'James' live on....Carson and Craigavon were the architects of Northern Ireland and their statues deserve to be at Stormont. What has Pearse got to do with Northern Ireland and why would his statue be at Stormont? As for Sands, what was he but a terrorist, who sought to destroy Northern Ireland and 'died through hunger for Ireland', rather than seek to build anything. James, if you waste time writing rubbish, please consider it worthy of the dustbin.

Mark in Cookstown wrote (98 days ago):

Clearly these people should not be in power as they are spending their time sniping at each other. Assembly members should spend their time dealing with real issues in the economy. If parties want to delegate time to issues like this it should be by unpaid members of their party. Stop wasting government time and money on minor issues that nobody really cares. Try focusing on getting us out of the recession muppets.

David in Belfast wrote (98 days ago):

Ca someone please give Jim Allister more airtime. Since he got elected I seem to turn the TV of more often and also seem to have found a new interest archaeology. I say we should keep voting him in. He is everything we dont want in a politician and keeping him around reminds us of that

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