Stormont is the Belfast version of Parliament.
You can't see it well, but from this vantage point, you can see all of Belfast. Also, in the springtime, that long road down the center is lined on both sides with big, blossomy trees and shrubs and flowers.
Some notables about Stormont itself:
During the second world war, after no one would believe the poor diplomat who claimed that NI would be attacked by Germany and the country was left entirely unguarded and, subsequently, was bombed, Stormont was used as a military base for the Royal Airforce. That was a poorly structured sentence, but you get the point.
However, the airforce was loathe to the idea of a station in the structure for, as you can see, it is high-roofed and bright white.
The solution? Double double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Tar and manure were melded together and spread over the entirety of the immaculate building. Green ash was spread atop the road as well to make it blend into the surrounding grass.
Why not black paint? Excellent question, young man. Black paint would have seeped into the stone, dying it permanently. After the war, a group of men were hired to restore the building. For 7 years, their whole job was to chip the tar off the white stone and make it beautiful again.
The picture of the ceiling there also has a story. It was painted in the 20s and hasn't required a refresher since. There is a special coating of wax topcoat over it, which can never be duplicated, as its creator died with the recipe.
The chandelier was once gifted by Germany to his brother ruler in England (the reason for the eagle between the branches which you can't see because I tend to be haphazard in my picture taking and it's blurry. But the eagle is the symbol of Germany). After a feud between them, it was sent to Ireland and officially gifted to Stormont within the recent past.
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| This is the NI cresst. 6 roses. One for each county. |
The picture within the picture in the second shot there is a portrait done, which includes faces of current members of the government, including a man named Paddy Roche, who is the students' politics and economy professor here. A unionist man (pro-NI-UK). When we went to Dublin with him, he had to bring Hadden along; Paddy is banned from several political places because of his non-nationalist views.
It's a funny thing about the politics in NornIron. Actually, Westminster closed down Stormont for about 30 years during The Troubles. It was like a child in timeout for a tantrum. A 30 year tantrum.
When it started back up, the people elected into power were who? The heads of the criminal parties responsible for the destruction. They showed us a picture of the major leaders and who they used to be. Things like, "Chef, school teacher, ex-con, ex-con, ex-con, ex-head of paramilitary group..." A bad wrap sheet, a profession-killer in the USA, actually makes you a likely candidate here.
For now, the country is stable under the direction of the two opposing leaders (a unionist and a nationalist co-rule).I have my own projections, though. There is going to come a time when The Republic and their nationalist followers will be tired of waiting for their wayward bride to come back voluntarily. And I do not want to be here when that happens.
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