Belfast City Hall
Belfast's grandest building was designed by an architect from London who won a competition, and its copper dome has turned green in the Irish rain.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- Donegall Square, Belfast city centre
- Built or opened
- Built 1898–1906; officially opened 1 August 1906
- Architect
- Alfred Brumwell Thomas
- Style and stone
- Baroque Revival, in Portland stone
- Height
- Central copper dome about 53 m (173 ft)
- Site
- Former White Linen Hall, home of Belfast's linen trade
- Famous for
- Signing of Ulster's Covenant in 1912 and the Titanic memorial in its grounds
- Grounds
- Queen Victoria statue (1903), Titanic Memorial Garden, Cenotaph
A city hall for a city that had only just been promised
Belfast was a boomtown. Linen, rope-making and shipbuilding had turned a modest market town into one of the busiest industrial centres in the British Empire. In 1888 Queen Victoria granted it city status, and the city fathers wanted a building to show they meant it. They chose a site in the middle of town: the old White Linen Hall, where the linen trade had been conducted for generations. The hall was demolished, and in 1896 a competition was held for its replacement.
The Londoner who won the commission
The winner was Alfred Brumwell Thomas, a London architect, whose Baroque Revival design beat the other entries. Building began in 1898 and the hall was opened on 1 August 1906. The cost was around £369,000, a very large sum for the time. The building is faced in pale Portland stone, with four corner towers and a great central dome of copper. Over the main entrance a pediment features Hibernia, the female figure of Ireland, surrounded by figures that stand for the city's industries and civic life. The copper of the dome was once bright and brown. Weather has since turned it the soft green that now dominates Belfast's skyline.
The inside is made for showing off
Inside, the City Hall was designed to impress visitors who had come to do business. Marble is everywhere, in the entrance hall, the grand staircase and the corridors, with stained glass and carved woodwork in the main chambers. The council chamber and the rooms used by the Lord Mayor are the heart of the building, and guided tours take visitors through them. Look up as you climb the staircase and notice how much of the decoration is aimed at your eye line, then at the ceiling.
The day nearly half a million signed
On 28 September 1912, known as Ulster Day, the City Hall became the centre of a major political moment. Edward Carson and others signed the Ulster Covenant there, a pledge to resist Home Rule for Ireland. About 471,414 people signed the Covenant and the women's Declaration that accompanied it, out of an Ulster population of roughly 1.58 million. Whatever one thinks of the politics, the day made the City Hall a building where Irish history was made, not just recorded. It has continued to be a focus of political argument since. In December 2012 a council vote to fly the Union flag only on designated days, rather than all year, led to months of protests outside the gates.
What to look for in the grounds
The statue of Queen Victoria stands in front of the building. It is by Thomas Brock and was unveiled in 1903, three years before the hall was finished. Figures around the base represent the textile and shipbuilding industries that made Belfast rich. In the Titanic Memorial Garden stands a memorial to the liner built in the city's shipyards. It was unveiled in 1920 and features a Carrara-marble female personification of death, traditionally called Thane, on a Portland-stone pedestal. Plaques added for the centenary in 2012 carry the names of those who died. Elsewhere in the grounds you will find the Cenotaph and a number of other memorials, while the lawns are used for events from outdoor screenings to the city's Christmas market.
Notable people
- Alfred Brumwell Thomas
- Queen Victoria
- Thomas Brock
- Edward Carson
Test yourself
Play the UK quizMore to see nearby
Crumlin Road Gaol
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Prisoners at Crumlin Road Gaol went to court without ever stepping outside, via a tunnel under the road. Belfast's Victorian jail held suffragettes, IRA escapers and 17 hanged men.
Titanic Belfast
Published
Belfast's silver-shard landmark stands right beside the slipways where Titanic was built, and it is the same height as her hull. It opened before the centenary of her sinking.