It’s time to get moving on building an arts venue in the northern suburbs, area councillors say

A large swathe of the north of the city has libraries but no other cultural spaces, a 2022 cultural audit by Dublin City Council found.

It was barren from St Anne’s Park west through Artane into Whitehall, as well as Coolock, Raheny and Kilbarrack. “This covers large parts of Dublin 3, 5, 9 and 11,” the report said.

The council needs to get going on addressing that, said a motion from Green Party Councillor Dearbháil Butler on 15 April, at a meeting of councillors for the North Central Area.

Local area councillors backed her motion, which also called on council officials to make a working group with arts and community organisations.

Together, they should create “a comprehensive plan for the creation and management of the art venue, including but not limited to location assessment, facility design, funding strategies and community outreach”, said Butler, in the motion.

Dublin City Council City Arts Officer Ray Yeates said he would support the move to develop an arts and culture venue somewhere in the North Central Area.

“The potential for a venue for the arts should be looked at,” Yeates said. But it could take a decade to get the project off the ground, he warned.

Beginning a journey

Councillors already set an objective in the Dublin City Development Plan 2022 to 2028 to provide art and cultural spaces in areas that don’t have them. “And to prioritise such areas for investment,” the plan says.

Yeates said, in response to Butler’s motion, that the City Arts Office would be happy to support any working group set up.

Dublin City Council has in recent years supported arts initiatives in the North Central Area, including Creative Places which brought dance, music and theatre performances to Darndale.

Yeates said at the meeting that he has worked on other large capital projects in the past. Developing a major arts venue for the North Central Area would be a similar journey to creating the Axis theatre in Ballymun, he said – which took time.

Firstly, the working group would need to identify a site, then build a business case and then apply for capital funding, said Yeates.

“Like any long-term capital project we could be looking at five years before funding is confirmed and three to five years to build a state-of-the-art arts centre,” he said.

Councillors are keen to get cracking. After all, the area has been short-changed thus far, they said.

Independent Councillor John Lyons said that the North Central Area isn’t getting its fair share of capital funding and it has no cultural spaces available for performances, exhibitions or other creative endeavors. “Certain areas have been favoured over others,” he said.

Labour Councillor Alison Gilliland said she had pushed to get the project into the city development plan. “I’m really surprised that we are only looking at how we might do this now, when it is a stated objective in our development plan.”

An analysis has already been carried out on a potential site in Darndale, she said. “How can we collate all that is done and drive it forward before 2028 when our development plan is out of date?”

To secure an arts venue, councillors will need to fight for the capital funding, said Lyons. “It’s a battle. We have to get community spaces and artistic spaces in the area.”

Yeates said that getting something stated as an objective in the development plan is different from securing funding for it. “The development plan is not the corporate plan of Dublin City Council.”

He will work with councillors to establish the working group, he said.

Where should it go?

The first thing to do is to find the right site, said Yeates.

Once the area committee and the local area manager agree on a site, they can start to go after funding for the project, he said.

Stephen Rourke, a consultant in social and community affairs, carried out a feasibility study in December 2022 which looked at expanding the village centre in Darndale. One idea in that was an arts centre, he says.

“There is a strong basis for doubling the size of the village centre in Darndale,” he says. The community needs health services, migrant services, adult education and older people’s services, he says.

The study found that a further audit should be conducted to see whether there is sufficient performance space in the area.

“It is recognised that there is a lot of creativity and talent in the area and that young people do have a real interest in the performing arts,” it says.

But some respondents said there were few outlets in the area for young people and adults to get involved in the performing arts and develop the associated technical skills, it says.

There are lots of other potential sites in the North Central Area too, said Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney.

If each councillor identified one possible site, it would mean plenty to choose from, she said. “It’s so essential that we do identify a space.”

“We’ve been banging this drum for more than five years,” says Heney, by phone on Tuesday.

Around five years ago, she says, she and Sinn Féin Councillor Micheál MacDonncha examined applications for arts grants and found that there were none at all coming from artists in the North Central Area.

The Red Stables in St Anne’s Park could be transformed into an arts venue, she says.

The venue doesn’t need to be huge, says Heney, who used to be involved in amateur drama. “I went to see a fantastic play in the Viking Theatre last Friday night,” she says. “It was absolutely fabulous.”

That is a small venue above a pub in Clontarf, she says.

The new venue should be public though, says Heney. “It needs to be in the ownership of the city council and run for the citizens of the city.”