Michael Moynihan: Is there an alternative art venue to visit in Cork while the Crawford is closed?
Rose McHugh, Chair, with Mary McCarthy, Director, at the Crawford Art Gallery as it closed its doors to the public for an ambitious redevelopment project.
Last Friday night was Culture Night in Cork — Culture Night all over, of course, but yours truly stuck to home soil and sauntered townwards in the evening, keen to absorb the arty vibes.
On the one hand we were out of luck — too early for the concerts on top of the North Main Street car park, so we missed Ana Palindrome and Fixity, but we still knocked plenty of craic out of the night.
We had a quick look at the 3 on 3 basketball on the Grand Parade, for instance, though it wasn’t quite the same without the background commentary from Timmy McCarthy (of whom I have strong memories from the Parochial Hall c.1983, of which more at some later stage).
The English Market was good for a visit too, even if the crowds defeated us — a good sign in the overall scheme of things. The music aficionados in the group insisted on a visit to Plugd Records as that was open late-ish. Crowded, again, but again with the welcoming buzz. Everywhere you looked there were people milling around, chatting, seeing the city at its best despite recent travails.
One of our main reasons for coming in, however, was to visit a place that is now closed: the Crawford Art Gallery, which shut its doors last Sunday ahead of a large-scale renovation and extension project that’s expected to last two and a half years.
We weren’t alone, either. The place was rammed with people, all of whom were clearly of a similar mind to us: if this place is closing for a fairly lengthy period of time then I’d better get in for one last look. Top marks here for the old friends of ours we encountered near the lifts on the ground floor; they were returning to a place where they “did much of our early coorting”, a confession that seemed to me to warrant a blue plaque of sorts, surely.
Give the Crawford staff their due, they went out with a bang. There was live music to be heard in front of old favourites like Sean Keating’s Men of the South and there were guided tours explaining the background to more recent works like Dorothy Cross’s Daunt.
We said good luck to the big portrait of Roy Keane and then emerged onto Emmet Place, taking our place among dozens of other people who were all offering variations on a theme: if that’s it for a while, where do we go while this place is getting a lick of paint for the next couple of years?
This is not a knock on the Crawford itself. It was great to see so many people in the gallery last Friday night but it was also clear that it needs to be changed, modernised, and updated. The heat alone was oppressive from all the bodies milling around the corridors, for instance, and modern-day air conditioning would be welcome.
In short, the Crawford is great but needs to be brought into the 21st century. It was encouraging to hear its gallery director Mary McCarthy to spell this and other matters out to this newspaper last week: “It's bittersweet in one way as we know we are closing the doors of an organisation that is really loved by the public and will be deeply missed. However, we feel that loyalty.
“While this is sad, it is also a momentous moment as we are embarking on the next stage of the capital development plan
"This will transform the Crawford into a really significant visitor attraction and make all the bits of it that people love even better.”
Here is the question: is there an alternative while the Crawford is closed?
Having another large, accessible public space in the centre of town would be handy right about now.
Readers may point to shopping centres as places to congregate, and they are, but those are also commercial zones where businesses are trying to survive. The English Market, for instance, is itself a working commercial zone which is welcoming but not particularly amenable to large numbers of people who are seeking some respite from the rain or who are ticking a box on their must-see sights.
I’ve written here before about finding a balance between the Market’s need for regular customers and its ongoing attraction to tourists ducking in out of the rain.
I mention the weather deliberately. The unseasonable warmth of recent weeks is fast becoming a memory as more familiar weather announces itself: soon being comfortable indoors will take precedence over preserving the Mediterranean vibe of outdoor coffee. It’d be terrific to have an indoor space in the city centre which could be taken over even temporarily to house some of the Crawford exhibits and function as a pop-up gallery.
Look down the quays at the Marina Market, where what was once a large empty space is now thriving, with thousands of visitors every day. If you head back to town along the Monahan or Centre Park Roads you'll see other unused spaces which could easily be used for artistic exhibition. The folks at the Crawford plan on touring the collection — how about putting some of the pieces down there?
Mind you, while the work is being done I hope the gallery authorities keep a close eye on the inventory. The man whose name is above the door, William Crawford, lived down in Mahon in a house called Lakelands, noted for many years for the beauty of its limestone gateway.
The lintel of the gateway had the date 1812 carved into it, to mark Crawford’s date of birth, but it was taken down by what was then Cork Corporation when the first residential development took place in Mahon.
As far back as 2001 people were looking for the lintel, as the original plan was that it would be re-erected when the residential development was completed, but it appeared to have vanished.
Fingers crossed for the works now going into storage, but to be fair Mary McCarthy sounded a bright note in these pages earlier in the week.
“We know from covid that time goes very fast and we'll be keeping in touch with the public," she said.
“We would like for people to sign up to our newsletters. We are also touring the collection, so there will be a lot of activities over the two-and-a-half years. We will be super busy with the activity and also planning the reopening.”
Stay in touch. It won’t be too long before you’re back in the Crawford again.
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