By next week’s conclusion, the Abbey, Ireland’s pride in national theatre, will be momentarily closing its operations. The reopening is slated for late September, during the Dublin Theatre Festival, after a hiatus of two months wherein no plays will be produced. The theatre, which receives a significant quota of the country’s Arts Council funding, will call curtains during this period.
The reason for the closure, according to the Abbey, is to carry out essential maintenance and refurbishment work, typically confined to the low season of mid-January and completed within two to three weeks. Given Dublin’s rich theatrical history and global cities’ reliance on theatre as a high-value cultural pull for tourists, the closure seems out of place. The period of theatre catering to droves of American tourists during the summer is long gone, however, both local and international audiences deserve answers.
This decision follows the Abbey’s unresolved controversies over financial matters, culture, and governance that were brought to light following the 2021 exit of the former co-directors Neil Murray and Graham McLaren. Settlements, legal costs, and external report expenses have now exceeded over €1 million. The Arts Council had previously withheld some payments until these issues were resolved, and a critical governance report that was due last summer is still awaited.
Frances Ruane, an economist who has chaired the Abbey board since 2017, was reappointed to serve an extended term of two years by the Minister for Arts, Catherine Martin, in 2022. Ruane’s tenure will conclude on July 28th and it is unlikely the governance issues will be resolved beforehand, which is unfortunate. Smaller compared to the financial discrepancies unearthed by the RTÉ fiasco last year, but still substantial, the national theatre should be subjected to public scrutiny no less than what the national broadcaster experienced in the preceding year.