Doreen Corcoran, Chair of the Circle, in starting off the day's events, said that the Circle had unveiled two plaques to different people on the same day, and two plaques to the same person on different days, but this was the first time they had two unveiled two plaques for the same person on the same day.

The day was bright and cool with a hint of a shower, when over twenty people gathered in Mountcharles where Hewitt had lived from 1940 to 1957. Belfast City Council and the John Hewitt Society had sponsored the plaques, in Mountcharles and Stockman's Lane, and many of the Society's members were present to honour his life and achievements. Councillor Michael Browne, Chairman of the City's Development Committee, talked of the City's pride in an eminent poet and how the plaque would be an important point on the blue plaque trail under development. Michael Longley, the internationally aclaimed poet, spoke with affection about Hewitt and read from hie verse.

The company then adjourned to Stockman's Lane, where Hewitt had lived from his return to Belfast in 1972 until his death in 1987.