We've brought Red Lions out of the studio this weekend onto the streets of Belfast to look at how the city marks the history of its age of enlightenment.

City Council has made efforts recently to enable that story of the people and the places of the late 18th century,

and in particular the events of the United Irishman's 1798 rebellion to be better told. And there are those who feel more still needs to be done.

But it is a contested and a controversial history, as I suspect, we're about to find out.

Gemma Reid is a heritage practitioner and researcher on Belfast City Council's entries project.

Column Door is a public historian and tour guide

who runs a weekly 1798 walking tour.

Hard as it is to believe on a day like this.

This is where on the 14th of October 1791

the United Irishmen had their inaugural meeting

and so it could be regarded as the birthplace

of Irish democracy.

This is where democracy in Ireland was first enunciated here in Crown entry in the Crown

Tavern in 1791.

And so I think given that very seminal history that what's called for is something quite overt

in terms of marking this in a striking way, in a way that captures the fact that this is where so much of our history and politics really begins.

We need to address the fact that this history is in many ways a discarded history.

People don't realize the value of it because it is the history in this town in Belfast which gives this island its heritage,

it's democratic and inclusive heritage.

And that's a history that everyone can share in. It's a history everyone can look at

and see themselves reflected in and see people of their background reflected in.

And so it's a long past time that there was something striking in Belfast to bring home the fact that this is a location of seminal moments in our shared history in terms of democracy and inclusivity.

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