Latest news with #Troubles.It
BBC News
10-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Maze Prison peace centre architect urges Stormont to end stalemate
The architect behind a proposed peace centre at the former Maze Prison site has urged Stormont leaders to end their 12-year deadlock over the jail closed in 2000 and while most of the prison buildings near Lisburn have been demolished, some were listed and £300m regeneration plans for the site have been in limbo since Libeskind told the BBC's The View that claims a peace centre at the former prison site would be a shrine to terrorists were "absurd". "How absurd those statements were, because this was absolutely the opposite of it," he Polish-American architect oversaw the building of the 9/11 Ground Zero memorial in New York and the Jewish Museum in Berlin and says he remains committed to delivering the project in Northern Ireland. The development site stretches to almost 350 acres - one of Northern Ireland's largest in public high-security jail held paramilitary prisoners during the conflict in Northern Ireland known as the was the site of republican hunger strikes in 1981 during which 10 inmates starved themselves to death. Plans for a centre for peace and conflict resolution were blocked in August 2013 by then first minister Peter Robinson from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).It followed pressure from unionists who claimed the site would become a "shrine to terrorism".Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, then deputy first minister, later said that no further development would take place until the dispute was then, most requests to visit the prison buildings have been refused by The Executive Office - the joint department of the first and deputy first ministers. Mr Libeskind told The View: "We cannot continue living with the violence and the ghosts of the past. We have to move forward."I'm surprised personally that Belfast cannot come together, that the conflict is still there in the political levels, which should certainly see that the world is changing around us."And should see that something positive should be done on that site." Stormont stalemate The Maze Long Kesh Development Corporation (MLKDC) was set up to regenerate the site, which it believes could attract £800m of investment and up to 14,000 its work has been restricted due to the continuing political chief executive last month said its role has been "essentially limited to health and safety". Terence Brannigan, who chaired the MLKDC board for more than a decade, said they had tried to take decisions about the former prison "out of politics".He said they had proposed to The Executive Office a set of protocols to manage the prison buildings and peace centre."We were prepared to take that responsibility but unfortunately we weren't given that opportunity," he Brannigan said the site has "massive potential in terms of jobs, in terms of economy, and in terms of bringing prosperity to Northern Ireland".He said it was "shameful for us as a collective, for us, this community" that the site "has not delivered what it is capable of delivering for our people here". The annual agricultural event the Balmoral Show is held at the site and the air ambulance and Ulster Aviation Society (UAS) are also based manager Ray Burrows said it has "absolutely fantastic potential"."I see the potential that has come with us being here and I see no reason why anybody who comes here cannot realise the same potential," he said."If there was a collection of things to come and see, there'd be tens of thousands of people visiting this site annually."You can watch The View on BBC One Northern Ireland and iPlayer on Thursday at 22:40 BST.
BBC News
09-03-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Austins: What next for former department store in Londonderry?
In the heart of Londonderry, on a prime city centre corner, stands the building once home to the world's oldest independent department 1830 - some 20 years before Harrods of London began trading and more than a quarter of a century before Macy's of New York opened its doors - Thomas Austin came to Derry and opened a drapery shop on a city centre the next 180 years Austins would become synonymous with shopping in the shutters came down in 2016, the grand building has lain empty – now that is set to change. On Wednesday Communities Minister Gordon Lyons said a grant of £1.2m from his department would allow Derry's Inner City Trust to complete the purchase of the building. So what next for the former department store building?"Well that's the question isn't it?," the Venerable Robert Miller, chairman of the trust, told BBC Radio Foyle."Nothing is ruled out or ruled in. We have saved a building, we have rescued it, now the next stage is to work to revitalising it."Spread over five storeys and 25,000 sq ft, the Austins building dominates its corner of the generations it dominated the city's retail landscape Miller said it was a building people in Derry feel an affinity with. Liz Doherty remembers school day lemon meringue pies in Austins café and trips to see her cousin who worked in the ladies fashion department for more than 30 Austins was in its heyday, she loved "the style of the building, the ladies fashion, the old radiators and the staircase"."It had a beautiful atmosphere, it was so different to anywhere else. Whatever they decide to do next, like maybe a hotel, I hope they keep its old structure," she told BBC News NI."It really is a fantastic building, with such a sense of history to it." Conor Green owns a coffee shop close to the building and told BBC News NI it has been empty for far too long."Whatever goes in there, I hope helps attract a lot more people, a lot more businesses into the city centre," he wants the old department store to be given a new lease of life."I'm thinking restaurants, cafés, maybe even a cinema," he said."Things that will draw people in and where they can enjoy themselves." Archdeacon Miller said the trust knows how important the building is to the city."We are all mindful everyone is watching… that's good, whatever goes into it will encourage wider growth and development," he said. What is the Inner City Trust? Founded in the 1970s, with the then-Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry James Mehaffey and Catholic Bishop of Derry Edward Daly among its founding trustees, the Inner City Trust was designed to inject commercial and social life into the city centre after a decade of the has, in the decades since, developed some of the city's most recognisable buildings, including the Tower Museum, the Tower Hotel, the Bishop's Gate Hotel."One of our principles at the Inner City Trust is to diversify our portfolio to ensure risk is mitigated as much as possible. "But obviously it needs to be commercially productive…and benefit the community," Archdeacon Miller said, adding that work would begin almost straight away."The first element of it is stabilising the building, that gives us time in our conversations as to what might come next, on the next chapter because that will affect what it looks like inside," he said."It is not a case of saying 'who would like to come?' It is much more strategic than that." As shopping habits changed in the early part of the new century, Austins came under pressure, posting significant losses in 2011 and November 2014 the listed building was sold to the City Hotel receiver then sold the trading side of the it closed in 2016 more than 50 workers lost their jobs. Conservation architect Karl Pedersen told BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show the challenge that lay ahead was a "joyful one".The building, he added, had been "caught just in the nick of time"."There is a lot of the detail we will be able to restore and salvage and preserve," he said.
