Artist Robert Ballagh: Why are so many outsiders leading the Arts in Ireland?

Artist Robert Ballagh: Why are so many outsiders leading the Arts in Ireland?

Artist Robert Ballagh has written a letter to the Irish Times asking why practically every national cultural institution in Ireland is being managed by an outsider.

This comes after more than 300 people from the Irish theatre community signed a letter to the Minister for Culture over how the Abbey Theatre is being run since its Directors Neil Murray and Graham McLaren were appointed in 2016.

The letter complained that "there will not have been an Ireland-based actor in an Abbey Theatre production on an Abbey stage since Jimmy’s Hall ended on 8 September 2018 until The Country Girls opens on 23 February 2019."

"Not a single national-theatre contract has been given to an Irish-based set designer on the main stage in either 2017 or 2018."

"This year’s Christmas offering on the national-theatre main stage has for so many become the final straw. Any critical questioning of the wisdom of the Irish national theatre using its resources to facilitate a Canadian commercial management’s seven-week stopover, before going into the West End, has been cynically framed as xenophobic and little-islander."

https://www.invidio.us//watch?v=YbA8ndKvnvM

https://www.invidio.us/channel/UCgzyycFR6PEv-B90rAiFsQg