DECLAN MAGUIRE

When I started work for the Council in 1982 in the old Rates Hall, I was fascinated by the Gothic-Walt-Disney-Castle that is the Town Hall. If I had an errand to run there, I’d often go the long way round and explore the nooks and crannies. We used to have keys as part of our job, that would let us into most

of the rooms. I used to walk past the door that led up to the clock tower and it had the same kind of lock as most of the rooms. Every time I walked past it, I would think about going up. I never actually did it, I was scared that I’d start walking up and someone would ring the bells and deafen me, so I never went through that small door.

I have never been in the Belfast City Hall, but I have spent so much time in the Manchester Town Hall and it has become a part of my history and politics. I got so involved with activism that I was arrested for not paying the poll tax, spending 14 days in prison. I had survived the tumultuous times in Belfast only to come to Manchester and get arrested.

In 1984, after Thatcher banned trade unions at GCHQ, I joined NALGO (the main council union then). A mass meeting in the Great Hall was organised as a focus for the strike with The Trade Union Congress in Manchester.

On the day I was one of thousands who headed into the Town Hall. As I got near the Great Hall, I saw a camera crew for Channel 4 News in the middle of the crowd trying and failing to get in the packed hall. I cut through to them, said; “there’s a side door, follow me”, and took them along the corridor parallel with Lloyd Street, then down the short corridor and through the side door that brought us into the Hall with the stage full of speakers ahead to our right and the packed seating to our left, an ideal position for them to get the shots they needed for that day’s news bulletins.