R.B McDowell on Belfast City Hall
'Slowly I started to comprehend the connection between architecture and history -- the centre of Belfast was dominated by the monumental City Hall with its high dome and richly marbled interior, a striking symbol of Belfast's nineteenth-century economic achievement. At first it mightily impressed me, but as a teenage intellectual I soon discovered that cultured circles despised it as ostentatious and vulgar. Now I gather the City Hall's undoubted exuberance is seen as exhilarating.'
From McDowell on McDowell: A Memoir by R.B. McDowell (Lilliput Press, Dublin), soon to be reviewed on the new series of The Book Programme. I wonder what Professor McDowell would make of the Belfast Eye which currently shares space with the monumental city hall.
Comment number 1.
At 1st May 2008, brianmcclinton wrote:R B McDowell was the Junior Dean while I was at Trinity in the mid-late 1960s.
Brendan Behan referred to an Anglo-Irishman as a 'Protestant with a horse'. RB didn't have a horse but he certainly played the part of an 'Anglo-Irish' Protestant in a funny hat. He was an expert on 18th century Ireland, and I think he believed he was still living in it. It's hard to believe that he is still alive: he looked ancient in the 1960s!
The Junior Dean was the person who imposed discipline, but he was a most unlikely figure for this purpose. He spent a lot of time shuffling about Front Square and the Library Reading Room, mumbling to himself and doing his best to ignore any dubious student activities. I never heard of him disciplining anybody. But then I suppose that wasn't such a bad thing. He left the students alone and they (largely) behaved themselves, or at least were discreet about their misbehaviour!
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Comment number 2.
At 1st May 2008, alaninbelfast wrote:Damn Belfast, then you damn Durban too!
Belfast City Hall shares its design with the one Durban in South Africa. never got to the bottom of the story of which came first, and whose plan was "reused".
Pity that they forgot to plant the palm threes in front of Belfast's one!
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Comment number 3.
At 1st May 2008, John Wright wrote:I didn't know that, Alan... interesting.
(Election election polling polling.)
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