£154,000 restoration milestone for frequently-vandalised Orange hall at Belfast interface means finally opening long-defunct front door
Restoration work on what is arguably Belfast's most prominent Orange hall is almost complete, letting brethren regularly enter through the front door for the first time in half a century.
Clifton Street Orange Hall, near Carlisle Circus in north Belfast, has been covered in scaffolding for the last several weeks while work was under way to improve the facade.
The Grade B hall stands at an interface between the loyalist greater Shankill and republican New Lodge, and has frequently been vandalised.
The front door faces out onto the interface and, instead, to get in and out of the hall, the roughly 800 to 900 Orangemen who use it (spread among about 50 different lodges) must enter through a side street at the back.
"It's not particularly nice at the back," said Tommy Kielty, chairman of the hall committee.
"Sadly, with the Troubles, the building was probably attacked more times than enough.
"We haven't been able to use the front door of the hall for manys a year – the front door hasn't been open since the mid-70s.
"The only day it's open is the Twelfth of July."
Aged 72, and from north Belfast, the past district master of LOL1 said that the idea is to let people know the hall is indeed a working, functioning part of the city.
They sometimes let tours into the building, and Mr Kielty said that "people would say to us they thought the hall was closed".
His plan is to make tours a much more regular thing, and brightening up the front of the building and bringing its main doors back into use is part of that.
A gradual normalisation process has been under way for some years.
There used to be a large metal cage covering much of the front of the building, but that came off about a decade-and-a-half ago.
The lower front windows were also long bricked up, but this was undone a few years ago and glass (albeit with heavy grilles) was put in instead.
"The hall is 140 years old and is sadly the worse for wear," said Mr Kielty.
"We went for a grant there from the council three years ago. The grant has finally come through, so we're getting the whole front of the hall cleaned up.
"The windows are all being repainted, reglazed, and hopefully most of the paint that's been thrown at it will be taken off the walls, and the rails are getting painted – so it's the whole front of the hall.
"It'll brighten the whole place up again, and we're doing a wee bit of work on the roof to try and make it waterproof."
The grant, from Belfast City Council, is valued at £154,000.
"Sadly there's not enough money to be able to do the inside of the hall," he said, adding that if they can get people to contribute money for tours then that might change.
Now that the scaffolding is down, there is just one more tricky window to work on, and the latest job will be done.
Is he worried about more vandalism?
"Well certainly we are, but if we worry about it we'll never do anything," he said.
"I think it's time we did. Let's take a chance. If it happens, it happens - we can't do much about it."