SquaresRenew 25: Guildhall
Derry’s Guildhall was originally opened in 1890, but has required reconstruction over the years. A major fire destroyed everything but the clock tower and rear block in 1908 and it was rebuilt in 1912. In 1972 two terrorist bombs caused considerable damage and it was restored again in 1977. It’s third renewal was in 2013 when it reopened after a three-year refurbishment programme.
It’s a beautiful building outside and in. Some highlights of the interior are shown below. Of particular interest to me were the statue of Queen Victoria, one of the nicest I have seen with exquisite carving of her lace dress, and the cabinet dedicated to John Hume‘s peace awards.
John Hume is the only person to have won all three of these awards: the Nobel Peace Prize (jointly awarded to him and Sir David Trimble for their roles in the Northern Ireland peace process in 1998), the Martin Luther King Jr Non-Violent Prize (1999), and the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Prize, awarded in 2001. It’s a unique collection. When Hume died in 2020, Bill Clinton said:
John Hume’s chosen weapons: un unshakeable commitment to nonviolence, persistence, kindness, and love. With his enduring sense of honour, he kept marching on against all odds towards a brighter future for all the children of Northern Ireland. He was Ireland’s Martin Luther King.
It is questionable if Northern Ireland could have moved on as quickly as it did without this man.
Part of Becky’s SquaresRenew Challenge, using images from our April 2024 trip to Northern Ireland to illustrate one or more of the following:
- Move forward
- Reconstruct
- Renew
- Burgeoning
The Glasgow Gallivanter 
We need more people like that in the world!
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He really stood out amongst those still wedded to violence.
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That is a lovely statue of Victoria, different from the usual images of her.
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It is. We have one in the city and centre where she is young and on horseback. That’s my favourite, but this is a close second.
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It sounds lovely too. She wasn’t always a sad old lady and it’s nice to see her represented differenty.
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I wasn’t aware that John Hume won the three awards. I love what Bill Clinton said about him: nonviolence, persistence, kindness, and love. We need more of that today.
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I think he was a very special man. Clear sighted when many around him were blinded by hate.
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For all Bill Clinton’;’s faults, he was a good politician and that tribute to John Hume was heartening to read. It goes to prove that not all politicians are the same as people are so fond of saying these days.
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And his faults were many! But I agree, in US terms he and Obama had a statesman-like stature that those before and after them didn’t.
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Love the stained glass and the organ 🤗💜
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Those were at either end of a very splendid hall.
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I love the stained glass and the organ pipes and the quote about John Hume, he must have been quite a man.
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I think he did an enormous amount towards the peace process. The glass was lovely but, as I said to Sarah, very imperialist and hard to show to its best advantage in square format.
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That IS quite a nice statue of QV. She normally looks so four.
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I thought I’d corrected ‘four’ to ‘dour’ in time. Clearly not.
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I think she was almost got rid of at the last refurbishment, but the fact that it was such a nice statue saved her. I do that all the time, my comment flashes before me when I press reply and only then do the typos hit me – even when I’ve checked, that naughty autocorrect sometimes thinks it knows better.
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I like the stained glass! And I didn’t know John Hume was the only person to have won all three of those peace awards.
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The stained glass was beautiful, though very imperialist – and hard to show to its best advantage in square format. I didn’t know that about John Hume either.
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That is one building I missed. No idea why as we walked all round the city and even into some of the housing estates, (where the skeleton murals were) so maybe it was shut when I visited. Although I liked Derry Girls the Irish TV series I was really impressed with was Red Rock, a really good Dublin crime drama, easily the equal of Happy Valley, Broadchurch, Line of Duty etc… since then there’s been a steady stream of Irish TV dramas I’ve noticed as I’ve watched most of them. A real growing industry over there. Bob. BSS.
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Maybe! Definitely worth visiting if you ever go back, for all the things I’ve shown, plus there was an excellent exhibition on the ground floor about city’s history and the Ulster Plantations.
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a building that has seen so much, hopefully the next century it will see more peaceful times thanks to the efforts of John Hume and others. A wonderfully uplifting post
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Thanks. By coincidence we met the person who was CEO at Derry City Council during the latest refurbishment. She was rightly very proud of it.
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