Up first was our annual dinner. This year Ed had excelled and organised something very different. With the help of fellow petrol head Harry Harvey MLA he arranged a tour of Parliament Buildings (Stormont) with our dinner being held in the members dining room.
After tight security checks and a very memorable floodlit walk high up overlooking the snow covered city we arrived into the warmth of the Great Hall and iconic Italian marble staircase the scene of many political announcements and TV interviews.
We were welcomed by our guide Stephen who was to take us on our guided tour of the magnificent building opened in 1932. Designed by Arnold Thornely initially to have three buildings on the site bought by Lord Craigavon a few years previous. They reduced this to only one main building to reduce costs with the courts and executive buildings remaining in Belfast city.
To give politicians a full view of who they were representing they planned to have 365 windows in the new building but had to reduce this by one not to compete with Buckingham Palace which had a window for every day of the year. He explained the significance of the dip in the one mile driveway from the main road to Lord Craigavon's statue halfway up the imperial staircase. This was to give the false feeling of the building being larger and closer to those travelling towards it.
On the way to the Senate Room we stopped on the main staircase for a memorable group photo shoot. Stephen explained that this room was used by the RAF in World War 2 as an operations room with the outside of the Portland stone building being completely camouflaged by bitumen and cow manure as a black out measure.This room houses two magnificent paintings, the first by William Conor showing the opening of the Northern Ireland parliament at Belfast City Hall, the second being a painting by Noel Murphy entitled 'The House will divide' depicting the 108 MLA's in the assembly in 1998.
We were then taken to the Commons chamber which was completely fire damaged in 1995 and rebuilt in 1998 at a cost of over £22m. The walls lined in the finest English burr walnut we got a chance to sit around the main parties inner ring seating, where with microphones in hand and our feet on the reputedly largest carpet ever made in Ireland we all marvelled at what had gone on here in the years prior in our troubled past. We all wondered when this room would have full occupancy again and important decisions being made.
The main dining room was magnificent with a table being laid for us the full length of the room. It wasn't long before the air was filled with excited chat of our visit. Our three course dinner was excellent with all home grown produce and with everything being made in their busy kitchen.
All in all a very memorable occasion and our thanks go to Ed and Sharon for organising a very different evening.
Our next meeting will be our AGM on Tuesday 7th February 2023 at 7.0 pm in Blackwood Golf Club.
