Reclaim the Enlightenment

John Gray is the Chair of Reclaim the Enlightenment We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Who could not be inspired by the opening words of the American Declaration of Independence signed by Congress on the 4th of July 1776. …

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The Assembly Rooms Alliance heartily welcomes Belfast City Council’s unanimous decision at their meeting on Monday 1 September to proceed with the purchase for £2.7 million of the city’s historic Assembly Rooms and neighbouring properties. Agreement has been reached with the owners, Castlebrooke, on the terms of the purchase, and following the Council decision all that remains to be done is the completion of the relevant legal documentation. This is a vital step on the road to the restoration of …

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John Gray’s address to those attending Reclaim the Enlightenment’s celebration of Bastille Day may be of interest. On the face of it ‘These are the Times that Try Men’s Souls’ may seem an entirely apt title for an address in times when there are so many reasons why we might despair. It was a phrase famously used by Thomas Paine in his pamphlet The American Crisis published in 1776 when the colonists were indeed facing defeat in their struggle for …

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Speech by John Gray, Convenor of the Assembly Rooms Alliance, at a ‘Manifestation’ held on 14 June 2025 Thank you for coming once again to support the campaign of the Assembly Rooms Alliance to save the Assembly Rooms. When you read press reports at the end of last month you could have been forgiven for concluding that the battle was won – that the City Council had purchased the building for public and cultural purposes. Thus It appeared that the …

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The Education Reform Group of Reclaim the Enlightenment has commissioned an opinion poll by Lucid Talk on the Transfer Test. This follows on from Reclaim the Enlightenment’s commitment to the principles of our 18th century forebears who were advocates of ‘free and universal education’. In November 2003 we held a major conference the proceedings of which were published as Is Our Education System Failing Our Children? at a second major conference held in conjunction with Ulster University in May 2004. …

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The announcement on 15 January by World Monuments Fund (WMF) of its support for the rescue of the Assembly Rooms is a game changer! Amongst 25 heritage sites world-wide selected as part of the 2025 Watch, this is the only one in Ireland. WMF have clearly been convinced by the importance of the building but also by our ambitions for its future use as a multi-cultural arena, a place to explore our enlightenment heritage, and as a home for the …

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When our Minister for Education, Paul Givan, was gifted £20 million of funding from the Republic’s Shared Investment Programme ‘RAISE’, it should have provided a golden opportunity for addressing one of the principal causes of educational disadvantage – poverty. Instead he devised a bizarre formula for distributing the funds and one which prioritises privilege. We need be in no doubt about the significance of child poverty. According to the Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report (2022/23 ) the percentage …

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