Madam, – Minister for Arts, Martin Cullen claims he “mutually” came up with and “kicked around” another “fascinating idea” to follow his e-voting brainwave, this time to shovel the Abbey Theatre into the GPO.
The General Post Office is not just another old building to be recycled at the whim of a government minister.
It is owned collectively by all citizens of the Irish Republic – both materially and spiritually. The right of Irish women and Irish men to be free and equal citizens of the Irish Republic was hard won as a result of the very real dramatic events that unfolded within the GPO and the other garrisons at Easter 1916. We citizens hold the GPO not just as a symbol of that great national drama but as the repository of the collective consciousness surrounding the Rising and its eventual outcome, as do the diaspora and the multitude of foreign visitors for whom it is a place of genuine fascination.
Mr Cullen wants us to “Think of the wider context of O’Connell Street and try to rejuvenate it”.
The truth is that Easter 1916, the GPO, the Proclamation and our collective memory are sources of embarrassment to Mr Cullen and his Cabinet colleagues who would prefer no heroes to live up to and no vision for the future to aspire to. Better to sweep away all references to idealism and real (pre-Lenihan) patriotism so that this Government’s anti-republican neo-liberal agenda can proceed.
At Easter 2016 I intend to assemble with a mass of citizens outside a still functioning General Post Office to commemorate and celebrate the heroes and heroines of the Easter Rising, most of them ordinary workers including my grandfather John Stokes of the Boland’s Mills garrison. I have no intention of standing outside Abbey@theGPO on that day or any other, however thrilling that notion might be for the bourgeois elite.
Mr Cullen can put the “fascinating idea” into long-term storage – alongside his e-voting machines, at his own expense. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Abbey is moving to the GPO after all, with debate on the matter conspicuous by its absence. It would appear from Deirdre Falvey’s report (Artscape, December 12th) that the stakeholders in the Abbey – the performing arts and wider arts communities – have had no part in this decision.
If Mr Cullen takes the time to ask, he may learn what a grim prospect it is to those working in the performing arts to have to play and dance and sing where others fought – particularly when the fight is one about which the nation to this day feels so paralysingly ambivalent.
Furthermore, he may learn how many agree with eminent theatre director, Peter Brook, when he says that theatres should be designed primarily by the artists who work in them.
Do people agree on the urgency for a debate? Might the National Campaign for the Arts, for instance, seek to debate with the Minister the case for relocating the Abbey to the GPO? Can we look to director of the Abbey, Fiach Mac Conghail, to host a debate and represent to Government the views and, where possible, a consensus coming from artists, theatre workers and audiences? Or do we let pass without demur yet another decision for which future generations will not thank us? – Yours, etc,