Conservation at the crossroads in Northern Ireland: Terence O'Neill and the growing concern for architectural heritage 1956–1969

ABSTRACT

Terence O'Neill maintained a keen interest in conservation and architectural heritage, but his record on these issues in government in Northern Ireland is largely unexamined. This article addresses this deficit through a comprehensive review of the existing literature reinforced by archival material, revealing the familial and other connections that O'Neill had with the conservation world and civil society organisations, including his sometimes behind-the-scenes interventions on conservation policy. The momentous impact on the existing built environment from his drive to ‘transform the face of Ulster’ is ultimately foregrounded, particularly the contemporary philosophy underpinning the ‘balanced approach’ to development that was initially favoured by progressive opinion in the early 1960s, and the effect that the destruction of familiar places had on the creation of new heritage values. However, the failure of O'Neill to introduce town and country planning legalisation akin to that existing in Great Britain frustrated the efforts of conservationists who grew increasingly vociferous in their calls for action. As in other contested areas of public policy in the 1960s in Northern Ireland, the destructive forces unleashed in the built environment threatened architectural heritage and essentially remained unchecked in the absence of timely reforms prior to Direct Rule from Westminster.

KEYWORDS:

• Terence O'Neill
• Northern Ireland
• architectural heritage
• planning

Acknowledgement

This article is partially based on research completed in the Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment at Ulster University in 2014.

Notes

1. See, for example, Mulholland (2000), Warner (2005), Edwards (2008) and McCann (2015).

2. See, for example, Glendinning & Muthesius (1994), Glendinning (2010) and McCleery (2012).

3. PRONI, PM/5/67/1, Northern Ireland Information Service Press Release, 29 March 1968.

4. The B-files were accessed in the Monuments and Buildings Record, Hill Street, Belfast in 2013.

5. The few scholars outside Northern Ireland that identify the Irish Church Act include Hunter et al. (1993) and Glendinning (2013). As Hamlin (1993) notes, the 1869 Act was cited in later parliamentary debates over the introduction of the UK-wide 1882 Act.

6. ‘To all intents and purposes’, in the period 1924–1948, David Chart, the Deputy Keeper of the Records, was the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Ministry of Finance (Fry, 2005: 161). The Deputy Keeper's main responsibility was running the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The Minister of Finance was officially known as the Keeper of the Records.

7. Work towards publication of A Preliminary Survey of the Ancient Monuments of Northern Ireland in 1940, under the editorship of Chart, was largely undertaken through the voluntary effort of AMAC members over a six-year period (Chart, 1949). For Fry (2005: 161), the Preliminary Survey has never been superseded as a ‘Northern Ireland-wide summary inventory in the public domain’.

8. The first property to be acquired under the Land Fund was Castlecoole, County Fermanagh in 1951 (Fedden, 1968: 55).

9. The Northern Ireland Government invited the US President, John F. Kennedy, to officially open the Giant's Causeway during his visit to Ireland. However, as Prince (2008: 25) notes, this request was ‘politely but firmly refused’.

10. Rowallane House is the headquarters of the National Trust in Northern Ireland.

11. Glendinning (2008: 331) cites a letter that Sayers wrote to Matthew in which he hailed ‘the great vision of [Matthew's] work’, and underlined that Northern Ireland ‘has needed a call to planning for a long time’.

12. For instance, he helped organise a Belfast lecture by the poet John Betjeman in 1959 (25 March), which apparently led 75 members of the audience to join the Trust ‘on the spot’ (Gallagher and Rogers, 1986: 142).

13. For instance, Brett (cited in Mulholland, 2000: 133), in the aftermath of the well-known Caledon squatting incident in June 1968, publically stated the following: ‘Captain O'Neill seeks participation by people in public life. In Caledon he has got it – and no wonder’. See also Brett (1970).

14. Somewhat amusingly, Brett (1978: 132) reflected on O'Neill's ‘disconcerting ineptitude’ at the opening of Springhill House, where he was interpreted in his speech as having praised the Trust ‘as a reactionary body devoted to preserving the traditions of landed property and feudalism’.

15. Green attended the first UK conference on industrial archaeology in 1959 and was subsequently a prominent member of the Council for British Archaeology's research committee on the subject (Green, 1960). He later became general editor of the ‘pioneering’ publication The Industrial Archaeology of the British Isles (Palmer, 2010: 13).

16. NIEA, Ministry of Finance B-files (FIN), B842/1959, AMAC Meeting Minutes, 9 November 1960.

17. See Matthew (1964).

18. See Wilson (1965).

19. The URBS (1964: 2) sought to ‘encourage public interest in the need for the planned improvement and renewal of Belfast’, ‘to emphasize the urgent need for a comprehensive three-dimensional long-term City plan’, and ‘to agitate for improved planning legislation’.

20. Sayers was a Patron of the URBS.

21. As McClelland (2014) informs, the report was largely based on a comparative survey of legislation undertaken by Brett, and the minutes of the National Trust indicate it was sent to all local members, the government Ministers concerned, professionals such as planning officers, in addition to Northern Ireland MPs and Senators. See PRONI, D3727/H/4/1, National Trust Minutes, 19 March 1963.

22. PRONI, FIN/17/1F/20/2, AMAC Meeting Minutes, 16 October 1963.

23. Brett's ‘ground-breaking Buildings of Belfast’ was also published that same year (Patton, 1998: 6).

24. For instance, the likelihood of increasing pressure from the UAHS, National Trust and others was anticipated by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance in April 1968. See NIEA, FIN B164/1968, C J Bateman to W F Stout, 2 April 1968. Positive newspaper headlines in advance of the inaugural meeting of the UAHS, in November 1967, are evident in the Irish News (9 October 1967) and the Belfast Telegraph (9 October 1967).

25. The first committee included the Chair of Architecture at Queen's University Belfast, Alexander Potter; an architectural historian then at Edinburgh University, Alastair Rowan; the Secretary of the Northern Ireland Committee of the National Trust, John Lewis-Crosby; and, Harold Meek, who formerly worked in the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Ministry of Finance. See UAHS (1967).

26. Estyn Evans, then Head of the Department of Geography and later the first Director of the Institute of Irish Studies at QUB, was the first President of the UAHS.

27. For instance, ‘An advance copy of their [UAHS] leaflet’ was sent to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, who noted to a colleague ‘the pressure which we are both likely to come under from the AMAC and the UAHS’. See NIEA, FIN B164/1968, letter from C. J. Bateman to W. F. Stout, 7 October 1968.

28. The Ministry of Health and Local Government published a White Paper on Town and Country Planning in 1964 while the Ministry of Development circulated a memorandum of proposals for town and country planning in 1966. A White Paper on The Reshaping of Local Government was published in 1967.

29. NIEA, FIN B77/1970, AMAC Meeting Minutes, 9 October 1968.

30. This letter was also copied to the Minister of Finance, Herbert Kirk, due to his ‘interest in the subject from the Ancient Monuments and financial aspects’. In the letter, O'Neill refers to Matthew, the Folk Museum, the work of the National Trust, the growing interest in Belfast's buildings and the stronger powers then existing in England ‘to prevent developers from despoiling historic cities and towns’. See NIEA, FIN B164/1968, letter from T. O'Neill to W. K. Fitzsimmons, 12 March 1968.

31. PRONI, COM/100/10, Meeting Minutes, 17 December 1968.

32. For instance, the Skeffington Report by the Committee on Public Participation in Planning was published in 1969.

33. See, for example, Mulholland (2000: 11); Brett (1986: 33–34).

34. For instance, the UAHS pressed Faulkner in late 1969 to consider introducing, as an interim measure, various provisions from the English Town and Country Planning Act 1968 (NIEA, FIN B717/1969, Aide-memoire for meeting, 1 December 1969). Faulkner had previously opposed many of the reforms proposed by O'Neill and resigned as Minister of Commerce in January 1969, putting pressure on O'Neill in what would turn out to be the final months of his Premiership.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Northern Ireland Department for Employment and Learning under a PhD Studentship.