"Our theatre seems indestructible": Lennox Robinson's comment - made early in the last century - is just as apt at the end of 2004, a year in which the Abbey's capacity for survival was well put to the test.
This centenary year has been marked by a dire financial situation, threats of staff cuts, a disappointing box office, motions of no confidence in the artistic director, cancelled productions, and the Peacock having to go dark.
In the midst of such tribulation, our National Theatre now enters its second century with a blueprint for survival that has to be acted upon with urgency and determination. The Government's recent €2 million emergency funding comes with a proviso: the Abbey must reform and prove itself worthy of continued support.
Management, in response to its own internal review and the one initiated by the Arts Council, seems ready and willing to undertake this process of institutional change. However much this structural task occupies minds in the Abbey, no-one there should lose sight of the fact that what takes place on the stage is of far greater significance: that this is a creative institution that must reinterpret, renew and reinvent its role in expressing the human drama of the new century. That is its primary responsibility and one that, under the right direction and conditions, it is well capable of.
However, sorting out the internal difficulties alone is not the whole answer: it is indisputable that funding has never realistically matched the Abbey's needs. It must be recognised that box office and artistic success are not necessarily bedfellows in the milieu of a national theatre where commercial payback is not the first imperative.
The frustrating failure to conclude arrangements for the provision of a new home for the theatre is disappointing for the Abbey, for theatregoers, and the Minister responsible, Mr O'Donoghue, who is genuinely committed to making it happen. But, again, bricks and mortar do not make a national theatre: it is the spirit and imagination that reside within it, the innovative and daring acts of story-telling.
The Abbey Theatre is a national treasure and the object of great public affection. It has been central to the Irish experience - quite often the play-making in the theatre has been inseparable from the history-making outside of it. From Synge and O'Casey to Murphy and Friel, it has been the incubator of some of the greatest achievements in the dramatic arts: work that lives on and to which we return again and again. Hopefully, today's anniversary celebration of past glories will also be the beginning of a new period of recrudescence for the national theatre.