Top Issue 1-2024

28 January 1999 Edition

Resize: A A A Print

Times have changed

By Brian Campbell

The other day I drove through the gates of Stormont for the first time and when I saw the splendid building on top of the hill at the end of the mile-long, tree-lined drive, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

This was - like so many colonial seats of governments - a piece of architecture designed to inspire and also to intimidate.

The Stormont Parliament Building in the Unionist heartland of East Belfast was opened in 1932 at a time when British imperialism still had its necessary confidence and arrogance. In the newly established statelet of `Northern Ireland' this solid seat of a Unionist parliament - with its sweeping view over Harland and Wolff shipyard and the other industries which excluded Catholics - spoke of permanence and domination.

How Unionist hearts must have swelled as they strode through those gates and saw the gleaming white building on the hill.

And how nationalists must have burnt with resentment and humiliation as they looked upon this pillared symbol of their exclusion from power. It is significant that hardly any nationalists ever saw Stormont in real life - their view of it was confined to pictures and newsreels and television screens. I asked family, friends and neighbours of all ages, and not a single one had ever seen the building for real, nor did they know anyone who had been there, except in recent months.

For over forty years Stormont was the seat of one-party rule which presided over discrimination, gerrymandering and repression. It was not a place nationalists cared to visit, nor would they have been welcome if they had. But it was a place with special meaning for Unionists because it symbolised their power and security in their own place - it truly was, in their own words, a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people.

The very fabric of the building speaks of Unionist power, beginning with the statue of Edward Carson, the Unionist hero who stands guard at the top of the drive. Inside, more Unionist icons and imperial symbols send a clear message to any nationalist who may find themselves there.

These trappings make the sanctuary of the Sinn Féin offices all the more welcome. The party has over 20 offices - one for each of their Assembly members and others for meetings and administration. The state-of-the-art computers, faxes and office furniture are a world away from the usually decrepit premises and barely functioning equipment which activists have used over the years. Revolutions are always made on a shoestring.

Among the Sinn Féin people in Stormont are many who had been in jail. And it struck me that their very presence, their easy informality allied with a professional approach and their healthy disrespect for rules and procedures was as subversive here as it had been in the jails.

It also struck me that there is a feeling of delighted defiance and it is impossible not to share in it. To walk along the corridors of Stormont as if you owned the place is to put two fingers up to a lifetime of Unionist and British domination.

No wonder Unionists are fighting so hard to keep Sinn Féin from taking their seats in a new Executive and on the all-Ireland Ministerial Council. For the Unionist political leadership, the very fact that Sinn Féin occupies a part of this hallowed building is almost impossible to stomach. It is the ultimate shock to their political system.

What the Sinn Féin presence in Stormont symbolises is that everything has changed. Not only are nationalists and republicans ready to take their share of power but they are doing so in an administration which has an all-Ireland dimension which will forever change the face of politics in Ireland. Despite what Unionists say, that is what they signed up to in the Good Friday Agreement. Their only way out is to bring down the Agreement.

But what the Sinn Féin presence also symbolises is that Unionists cannot turn the clock back. The castle walls have been breached and the rebels are swarming all over the fine furniture. They are ready to turn the place upside down and, ultimately, there is nothing the Unionist leadership can do about it.

So, instead of talking about ``a life outside politics'' David Trimble should embrace the new realities - something he should have done nine months ago - and accept that the old certainties which Stormont represents for him no longer hold true. Times have changed.

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland