Change was in the air on many fronts in 1965, not least in cross-Border relations, with the first meetings between taoiseach Seán Lemass and the North’s premier, Capt Terence O’Neill, which were followed by a series of other ministerial meetings. Eileen O’Brien reported on the week in Stormont, which included the pomp and ceremony of the official opening of a new parliament before returning to business as usual.
THE FIRST week of the 11th Northern Ireland Parliament opened in an atmosphere of mild anti-climax. Unionist spokesmen had prophesied woe on December 12th – the anniversary of the 1956 outbreak of the I.R.A. campaign.
The I.R.A., with mutterings about Reichstag bonfires, seemed to be implying that Captain O’Neill would creep out in the middle of the night and set fire to Stormont itself in order to make the prophesies come true. Nothing had happened. The prophets had got a gunk.
When the Governor, Lord Erskine, therefore arrived at Stormont on Monday to dissolve the 10th Parliament, a sardonic cheer arose when his car – which had been preceded by a modest police escort – was seen to be followed by a small van packed to capacity with fierce looking young men. The van was inscribed, “industrial therapy”; a cunning disguise? shock treatment, perhaps?
Inside Stormont, members were kept running that day, first to the Senate, then back to the Commons. [...] As Stormont is vastly larger than Leinster House the distances are considerable. For the dissolution ceremony, some 18 Senators and 40 M.P.s appeared, Mr. Eddie McAteer [Nationalist Party leader], for the first time taking his place as Leader of the Opposition beside the Prime Minister at the head of the procession. When the Speaker of the Commons, Sir Norman Stronge, had been elected he was exceedingly engaging in his role of coy reluctance before finally allowing himself to be hauled to the throne by his sponsors, Mr. Isaac Hawthorne and Mrs. Dinah McNabb, both of whom also gave spirited performances.
The ceremonial opening of the 11th Parliament in the Great Hall next day was like a well-staged, well-costumed production of a comic opera by some strange culchie Gilbert and Sullivan – the Governor in his white plumes, the guard behind him in fur hat; cockades and tiara brooches; Lord Brookeborough resplendent in full dress uniform with a big blue ribbon across his chest indicating the Order of the Garter; Miss Sheelah Murnaghan, the Liberal member for Queen’s University, appearing hatless and unadorned, while the rest of the women were uneasily hatted, high-heeled, bejewelled and befurred; gentlemen in wigs, gowns and gold lace, others in knee breeches, silk stockings and silver buckled shoes, walking backwards bowing; names bandied, like the “gentleman usher of the Black Rod.”
A lot of talk about the Parliament’s ancient usages, ancient right and ancient privileges – was the summer of 1921 really in the middle ages or could Mr. McAteer have been justified in describing the whole thing as mumbo jumbo?
The R.U.C. band entertained the company to jigs and reels at a slow pace suited to the solemnity of the occasion, as well as a very soulful rendering of Galway Bay. When things got back to normal, the first speaker, Mr. Joseph Burns, was claiming that his constituents were surpassed by none in their loyalty to the Queen, Mr. McAteer was talking of the dirty hands of the gerrymanderer. Next day things were more normal still as Mr. Eddie Richardson called the Government blood-thirsty bigots but Mr. Roderick O’Connor, another Nationalist, made up for it in a warm tribute to the courtliness, efficiency and unfailing helpfulness of the Cabinet. “Apart from their politics,” he declared magnanimously, “I could not find a fault with them at all.”
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