Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Workshop Report 5: Spaces and Places: Belfast's CultureAuthor(s): Gerald Dawe and Judith JordanSource: Fortnight, No. 309, Supplement: Conference Proceedings (Sep., 1992), pp. 16-17Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25553630 .

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and improvements in the areas designated

(or not) for their use. And, because they are

not consulted in the processes that shape and govern their surroundings, there is an

absence of shared civic pride and no real

sense of common ownership. The problem here cannot be dismissed as apathy. When

people have to concentrate their energies on

stretching their money from day to day, they don't have the time or the inclination to

pontificate on the joys that public spaces can bring to the human soul.

Many speakers made it clear that they saw an urgent need for a revision of the

current system for public consultation ofthe

DoE's planning processes. Newspaper ad

vertisements don't play an active enough role in getting the message down to grass roots level: there must be more commitment

from the DoE to outlining their aims and

methods to community representatives who,

in turn, can lend their insight and experience to the planning process. Moreover, they can

disseminate information among the people who will be affected by changes to their environment. The department must show

that it is willing to get engaged in this democratic exchange, and planners must

not subsequently be content to design open

spaces/or people; the design of these spaces must be public-led.

Sectarianism and the division of territo

ries along tribal lines were two of the prob lems arising out of discussion on the practical

difficulties of developing urban areas for

open spaces. It was agreed that the DoE

must be aware ofthe tribal boundaries while,

at the same time, refusing to allow this issue

to impede constructive progress. Perhaps the focus for future development could be

on neutral areas like the city centre and

certain pieces of territory known as 'no

mans-land'. Planners should not reinforce

the idea that boundaries between communi

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Ian Kirk-Smith thinking ties are physically defined and immutable.

D McAuley from the DoE explained, in its

defence, that walls separating communities

were not their invention but they were

obliged to maintain them. Philip Allen, from the Green party, pointed out that these walls

contribute to the city' s siege mentality, erod

ing the generosity and spirit that are essen

tial parts of regenerative growth and hope for the future. He added that open spaces should be both beautiful and useful?for

example, urban agricultures that can double

up as a city park.

Developing allotments and city plots is

one area that is beneficial both to encourage a much-needed sense of community and to

stimulate 'urban greening'. Discussion about

the issue of urban greening revealed that

strategic policies for its coherent develop ment are essential. Piecemeal processes are

irrelevant; it must be recognised that all city

vegetation is part of a collective stock and

must be managed accordingly. The thorny area of city traffic was also

tackled at the workshop. It became clear that

many of those present regarded the domi

nance of the motor car as a blight on the city and an impediment to its development? one speaker asked why the city centre is

bulging with car-parks at a time when the

impetus in other cities is towards getting rid

of the car in downtown areas. The idea of

'park and ride' schemes was offered as a

solution to this problem. Belfast city council was not overlooked

in the workshop: several speakers indicated

that they would like to see some vision and

imagination coming from the council

chamber.

The DoE's March 1992 publication, Nature In The City, outlines the strategies for nature conservation in the Belfast urban

area. Comments on the policies are invited

and should be addressed to: Nature In The

City, Belfast Development Office,

Clarendon House, 9-21 Adelaide Street,

Belfast BT2 8NR

Rapporteur: Suzanne Doran

Workshop report 5

SPACES AND PLACES:

BELFAST'S CULTURE

Chair: Gerald Dawe (poet)

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THE DIVERSITY OF Belfast, culturally, historically, architecturally and politically

gave rise to wide-ranging contributions from

the panel of writers and academics who took

part in the workshop. The panel comprised the novelist and writer Robert McLiam

Wilson, Aodan Mac Poilfn (Ultach Trust), Damian Smyth (FET) and John Gray (Linen Hall Library) and was chaired by Gerald Dawe who, in his introduction (see p 17)

posed questions as to how, in the midst of

the present 'troubles', was it possible to

create a city which was not architecturally bland and culturally sterile, a place with

which people could identify as opposed to the recent architectural developments which

tended to disregard the tastes and aspira tions of ordinary people.

The architectural cudgel was taken up by Damian Smyth who spoke of Belfast as a

'Gotham City' in the making while Bel

fast's 18th-century architectural heritage is

allowed to fall into disrepair and neglect, and referred to Castle Court as an example:

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"A building so big and so expensive we are afraid to say how unspeakable it is and

how unnecessary." Dr Smyth also criticised city planning as

unimaginative, "building segregation into

the fabric of the city", and alluded to the

inaptly named 'Westlink' which separates west Belfast from the city centre, and the

'Peace Line' which is an ironic contradic

tion in terms.

While accepting that the troubles of the

city and 'the troubles' are related, Dr Smyth expressed concern at the present trend of

city planning to reflect the politics of divi

sion, and warned of the irreversibility and

damaging effects of current policies. He

spoke of a catalogue of "mistakes" which

have resulted in "the alienation of Belfast

from itself and the "feeling of a depopu lated space with no history".

John Gray, who chairs the Save The

Cave Hill Campaign, compared the con

Spaces and places: an introduction

GERALD DAWE meditates on the imaginative environments of a city without civic space

WHAT SHOULD BE, and indeed once was, a city centre, has fragmented into

bits?antagonistic, dismissive, aloof or

indifferent to each other. Belfast as civic

space has broken apart and shrank. Yet

Belfast with its lough, hills and surround

ing countryside is rich in possibility. We

need only think, too, of the cultural mix

upon which the city is built to put us wise

about its human potentiality. English,

Irish, Scottish; refugees from here, there

and everywhere; religious sects, racial

minorities, all with their own customs,

aspirations, prejudices, ideas, experiences,

desires, language and self-understanding. Or not, as the case may be.

So the question I wanted to pose was

this: just how can the city accommodate

and foster this diversity without ending up with the cultural and civic equivalent of a

bland, second-hand modernity such as one

sees in the recent spate of redevelopments within and against which ordinary people are dwarfed and marginalised? The

violence of political and sectarian hatred

has, as we all know, deprived us of

meeting and creating something out of all

this difference; or of just being ourselves.

The options should be available to all. I

suppose this is what bothered me as I

walked around.

I was also thinking of the artistic and

imaginative opposition found in the work

of writers like Padraic Fiacc, Derek

Mahon, Stewart Parker, Michael Longley, Ciaran Carson, Graham Reid, Glenn

Patterson, Robert Wilson and Christina

Reid among others; or in the music and

lyrics of Van Morrison; or the clubs and

dancehalls where r & b, jazz and blues,

accordion and flute bands, folk and

traditional music were played in previous decades of Belfast life. Out of all this

swirling kaleidoscope, it seemed impossi ble to think that we were still stuck in an

historical freeze-frame, like puppets being worked by faceless lords and masters, in a

beheaded capital city that exists in some

stateless limbo and whose ambiguous hinterland is not 'county Belfast' but

counties Antrim and Down.

I thought it might not be a bad idea if

some of these blurred images and issues

of authority and cultural identity were

clarified. The plan of the conference was

to consider the historical cultural,

architectural and political co-ordinates of

what has shaped Belfast, bearing in mind

that a city?any city?can never be fixed

in one final mould or essence. Things

always change but it is no harm to take

time out and think on the kinds of

continuity and crisis that make Belfast

what it is. The panel addressing the

cultural ramifications of this question are

Robert Wilson, Aodan Mac Poilfn,

Damian Smyth and John Gray. In opening our discussion, I turned to John Wilson

Foster's BBC radio broadcast, 'A Country

Boyhood In Belfast' since it seemed to

embody the spirit that binds each one of

us, whether we like it or not, to this

particular place called Belfast and its

people:

When I was a boy I lived in four countries. I

lived in Britain, which we called England because all our playthings were stamped 'Made In England' on their underparts, be

they Hornby, Triang, Dinky or Chad

Valley?the potent proper names of our

desire. England was toy land and, at the same time, the rather stern parent from

whom the toys aloofly came. Northern

Ireland was not strictly a country but the

place where I ran, quite literally, my heedless ways ... Northern Ireland, let's say, I lived rather than lived in. In the beginning it was Belfast, which in turn meant the

streets of our little canton, named after

Shakespearean characters whom we did not

know, and so we pronounced them as we

saw fit?Oberon Street, Titania Street, Glendower Street. Had we known them we

might have nicknamed our canton as wits

had named the Ormeau district of Palestine,

Jerusalem, Cairo and Damascus streets 'The

Holy Land'. But where we grew up was, in

any case, The Holy Land.

GERALD DAWE'S most recent collection

of verse is Sunday School, (Gallery). A

volume of essays, A Real Life Elsewhere, is

forthcoming from Lagan Press.

cepts of spaces and places past and present,

referring to the Belfast Waterworks, once

advertised as "Belfast's Inland Sea Resort"

and now vandalised beyond recognition. He

said that the Belfast city council lacked

imagination and agreed with Dr Smyth that

the wishes of the people of Belfast are

largely ignored by the council, evinced in

the southward move of the city centre which

"flies in the face of historic development". Mr Gray went on to say that inner city

open spaces are being designed as "theme

parks for trendies" while, in the outer areas,

green spaces, such as Cave Hill, are being

detrimentally transformed to become "tour

ist facilities for the respectable".

Pursuing the historical vein in terms of

literary and cultural heritage, Aodan Mac

Poilin identified the widespread use of the

Irish language in the 19th century, first by the Ulster Society in the 1830s and, later, in

1895, by the Gaelic League. However, by

1913, political and social changes meant

that attempts to revitalise the use of Irish had

largely foundered: "we seem to be in the

position now where it is impossible to break

down the barriers".

The Irish language in the 1990s is stig matised by divisive political barriers which

seem to be insurmountable. Irish speaking areas are almost extinct, apart from an en

clave of a few houses in west Belfast. There

is no neutral territory where interested peo

ple of all creeds can go on a regular basis to

learn the language, without feeling uncom

fortable outside their own 'territory'. In

effect, this means that the protestant com

munity is essentially isolated from a vital

part of its cultural heritage. The heritage of a violent society is re

flected in the writing of Robert McLiam

Wilson who read from his latest work which

records the ambivalent emotions generated

by a torn environment. "I always stay but I

never really want to".

He chronicles the places?Bogside,

Crossmaglen, Shankill, the Falls,

Andersonstown. On the one hand, he praises the beauty of the lough "ringed by moun

tains" and, on the other, portrays the ugli ness of "automatic gunfire".

Whose city? For Robert McLiam Wilson,

spaces and places are about the people who

inhabit them and perhaps he reflected the

tone of the workshop in his view of the

city?it is the city of people who are buf

feted about in the minority/majority game "like windsurfers caught in the crossfire ...

forced to play the sordid game". The issues arising from the topics

broached by the panel touched on matters

concerning access and rights of way, both

physically and mentally, and which have an

effect on all of society. The general consen

sus of the workshop was that the issues

should be raised again and again through

literature, pressure groups and dissenting voices if, in the future, the spaces and places of Belfast are to be managed in the interests

of the people of Belfast.

Rapporteur: Judith Jordan

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