Opinion

Claire Simpson: The Linen Hall Library connects us to each other and our past

Linen Hall Library in Belfast city centre. Picture by Hugh Russell
Linen Hall Library in Belfast city centre. Picture by Hugh Russell Linen Hall Library in Belfast city centre. Picture by Hugh Russell

A friend who has lived in Belfast on and off for 20 years recently went on one of the many bus tours the city has to offer.

“How was it?” I said. She started to laugh. “It was as if ‘yeah the Troubles happened, but never mind about that, why not go shopping?’,” she said. She was joking but in truth both of us were a little disturbed by the idea that what the city mainly has to offer is a series of chain coffee shops and clothes shops - the same as any other large town on these islands.

As a proud culchie, I’m frankly bewildered by our temples to Mammon. ‘There but for the grace of God,’ I thought while reading about chaos in Belfast’s Build-A-Bear Workshop last month - all due to a cut-price promotion on cuddly toys.

Every time we meet, my younger sister and I like to stick to our ‘shop rule’ of no more than short visits to three different stores - by the third shop we’re ready to run for the drumlins of north Antrim anyway. Having to spend an extended period of time in a shop, any shop, is akin to entering some fluorescent hellscape complete with cramped changing rooms and long queues.

The one building in the city centre which seems to stand against our capitalist culture of treating us all like walking debit cards is the Linen Hall Library. Founded in 1788, the Linen Hall is the oldest library in the city and the last subscribing library in Ireland. Everything about it, from the packed bookshelves to the slightly battered furniture seems in direct opposition to glossy consumerism. I visit the library most weeks for the sheer joy of browsing the shelves, knowing that I won’t be asked to spend anything, unless I want a decent cup of tea and a sausage roll in the cafe. The building itself makes me feel more human - like a person rather than a sentient bank account.

Now due to funding cuts the library will be forced to close its doors on Saturdays for a trial period. It seems a nonsense that, for the sake of £25,000 of public money, a building that should be a major tourist attraction will have to close on the busiest day of the week. And look what people are losing out on: the library has arguably the best and most interesting collection about the Troubles of any public space in Ireland. Since a former librarian decided to keep a civil rights leaflet handed to him in a bar in 1969, the library has collected a huge amount of vital material from all sides of the conflict. It has everything from loyalist news-sheets to political posters and holds the official archive of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

This is the kind of material that should be made as widely accessible as possible. Former Secretary of State Mo Mowlam described the extensive political collection as “an invaluable resource for the people of Northern Ireland, principally because it will tell the truth about the history of Northern Ireland not in terms of the careers of individual politicians, but in terms of the people themselves”.

The library has faced funding cuts in the past. Almost three years ago, it appealed a planned cut and had £25,000 reinstated to its budget.

It aims to appeal this latest cut and hopefully will be successful. In terms of the much-vaunted £1 billion Tory-DUP deal, £25,000 is small change. Such a relatively small sum can do little to plug massive shortfalls in health and education budgets but it can make a huge difference in supporting an institution which pre-dates the United Irishmen Rebellion. Just because the library has existed for several centuries doesn’t mean that it always will.

I’d rather not live in a society that treats its people as consumers first and citizens a distant second. The Linen Hall is one of our few institutions which does the opposite. It connects us to each other and our own past and gives us some hope for the future.

When we lose our libraries, we lose our humanity. Let’s make a stand. Let’s insist that the Linen Hall gets more money, more resources, more staff to build its important collections and do outreach work to communities who may never have set foot inside the building. It’s been part of the true heart of Belfast for so long. Let’s keep it that way.