The Irish Times

Conservationists are determined to save Belfast's Victorian 'gems'. "Avict orian gem" is how Fionnuala Jay-O'Boyle describes Belfast. She should know. We are sitting in St Patrick's school, one gem which Jay-O'Boyle has helped restore to its finery. Built in 1828, the school was the first example of neo-Gothic architecture in the city. The erosion of time and a fire in 1995 reduced it to a shell. However, what was once a burntout husk, is now a home for offices. To use a favourite Jay-O'Boyle phrase, it "is proof of the art of the possible". Jay-O'Boyle is chairwoman of the Belfast Buildings Preservation Trust, which was set up in 1996 as "a rescuer of last restore" which aims to rescue historic buildings and, in cooperation with local communities, give them new life and relevance. "It starts very much on the basic premise that once you have lost these buildings you can't put them back," she says. A native of Derry, Jay-O'Boyle, is proud of Belfast's architectural heritage: "It makes me slightly cross, sometimes more than slightly cross, that when people think of Ireland they think of Georgian Dublin - and rightly so. Dublin is a wonderful city. But what is less appreciated and less well known is that Belfast - with the possible exception of Manchester - is the finest Victorian city on these islands.