By John Gray
The Assembly Rooms are to Belfast what Leinster House and the Guildhall are to Dublin and London respectively. No one would dare propose that they should be converted into boutique hotels or allowed to fall into dangerous dereliction. Yet that is precisely what has happened to our Assembly Rooms.
Located in Belfast’s ‘Cathedral Quarter’, this is the city’s most historic building. Originally built as a single-storey market house in 1769, an additional storey was added in 1776, transforming it into the Assembly Rooms. As such it lay at the very centre of the eighteenth-century town.
It was also central to the cultural life of the town during its Enlightenment era. It was the venue for the famous Harp Festival of 1792, for the defeat of the proposal to set up a Belfast-based slave-trading company, for the foundation of the Ballast Board (forerunner of Belfast Harbour Commissioners) and for the court martials of United Irish prisoners, including Henry Joy McCracken, at the time of the 1798 rebellion.
It was converted into a bank in 1845 in work undertaken by Belfast’s most celebrated nineteenth-century architect, Charles Lanyon. That has left us with the legacy of a magnificent banking hall. The bank closed in 2000 and the building has been vacant ever since. Despite its grade B1 listing, it had to be placed on the ‘at risk’ register in 2003. Even in deteriorating condition it was used in the early years of this millennium by theatre companies, for concerts and for exhibitions, an indication of its future potential if only it can be saved.
In 2008 well-known artist Brian Vallelly held a major retrospective exhibition there. He reflects:
‘All the time I was conscious of the privilege it was for me to have such a venue to hang my paintings. I don’t think anyone of the thousands who eventually visited during the two months or more the exhibition was in place could have left without thinking what an architectural gem we had in Belfast. When the harpers came in to play, we were transported back to 1792 and the Belfast Harp Festival.
I was convinced that having restored the building and let people see what had lain under the grime and dereliction that the powers-that-be would have continued the work I had started at my own expense and fully restored this wonderful building as a permanent cultural centre for Belfast, Ireland and the world.
Imagine my disappointment and distress when I visited a short time later seeing the building left to sink once again into dereliction once my exhibition was over.’
Latterly the Assembly Rooms became part of the wider Tribeca project promoted by developers Castlebrooke. As with the rest of their properties, nothing has been done. Instead, according to a survey undertaken in January 2024, the Assembly Rooms are now in a close to catastrophic condition. According to the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, ‘It is shocking that such an architecturally important and historically significant building … can come to be treated as a mere derelict eyesore’.
Castlebrooke are in the process of submitting an application for renewal of their existing planning permission. Given their failure to date, this is widely opposed, and not least by the influential Cathedral Quarter Trust. Encouragingly, Belfast City Council is now considering vesting the entire Tribeca project and have indicated an intention to acquire the Assembly Rooms sooner rather than later whether by vesting or by purchase. We must continue to press for action.
If the Council fails to act, then others of us will seek to act independently. This campaign to save the Assembly Rooms for appropriate public use has been mounted by the Assembly Rooms Alliance, which was established in February 2023 with the objective ‘to preserve the Assembly Rooms and to secure them for public use as a facility for arts and heritage purposes and for other community uses’. The Alliance is spearheaded by Reclaim the Enlightenment and those involved include a range of cultural organisations, potential users of the building and individuals with particular expertise.
The Alliance has developed proposals for the future use of the building:
- The Banking Hall. This particularly fine space is capable of accommodating an audience of up to 300. This should provide a semi-permanent display on the remarkable history of the building and provide a multipurpose venue for cultural, arts and community events. These might include concerts, conferences, drama, exhibitions, lectures etc. In fulfilling this role it would also be true to the multicultural and enlightened uses of the building in its early history.
- The rest of the building. Our current proposal is that this should accommodate the proposed Museum of the Troubles and Peace. This enlightened vision will avoid the perils of any single overarching narrative. Rather it will provide a multifaceted experience for visitors to explore and to reach their own informed conclusions.
John Gray is a former Librarian of the Linen Hall Library, Belfast.