Irish question; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- Politics and government
The City Hall in Belfast is a building of which Ulster is justly proud.
It is, indeed, one of the few modern public buildings in the British
Islands in which the most exacting critic of architecture finds nothing
to condemn. Standing in the central site of the city with ample garden
space in front, its noble proportions and beautiful façade and dome fill
the view from the broad thoroughfare of Donegal Place. The main entrance
hall, leading to a fine marble stairway, is circular in shape,
surrounded by a marble colonnade carrying the dome, to which the hall is
open through the full height of the building. It was in this central
space beneath the dome that a round table covered with the Union Jack
was placed for the signing of the Covenant by the Ulster leaders and the
most prominent of their supporters.
To those Englishmen who have never been able to grasp the Ulster point
of view, and who have, therefore, persisted in regarding the Ulster
Movement as a phase of party politics in the ordinary sense, it must
appear strange and even improper that the City Hall, the official
quarters of the Corporation, should have been put to the use for which
it was lent on Ulster Day, 1912. The vast majority of the citizens,
whose property it was, thought it could be used for no better purpose
than to witness their signatures to a deed securing to them their
birthright in the British Empire.
At the entrance to the City Hall Sir Edward Carson was received by the
Lord Mayor and members of the Corporation wearing their robes of office,
and by the Harbour Commissioners, the Water Board, and the Poor Law
Guardians, by whom he was accompanied into the hall. The text of
Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant had been printed on sheets with
places for ten signatures on each; the first sheet lay on the table for
Edward Carson to sign.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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