Museums honour the past. Their opening hours should honour the present too
We have a rich history and the guardians of our national treasures do a wonderful job, but it’s time to move the clock forward on behalf of the citizens of this 21st-century republic
SHORTLY after Michael Mallin’s execution on May 8, 1916, his belongings were returned to his widow, Agnes. Among them was a hat, a smart-looking brown trilby. A handsome man, Michael Mallin would have carried off a trilby very well.
Agnes, who was pregnant when her husband died, must have been heartbroken as she ran her hands over that hat, poking her finger, no doubt, through the hole she would have discovered in its crown. The hole left by the bullet that had whistled through it sometime during the week of the Rising when Michael Mallin was commanding officer in the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen’s Green.
Agnes Mallin certainly looked after that trilby very well, as, a century later, her husband’s hat is still – apart from the bullet-hole – in pristine condition.
Peering at it under glass last Saturday morning in our National Museum at Collins Barracks, where it is part of the 1916 ‘Proclaiming A Republic’ exhibition, I had an overwhelming sense of history right there before my eyes.
Major John MacBride’s silver cigarette case had the same effect on me. In this instance it’s not so much the article itself, but the inscription on it, that delivers the ‘OMG’ moment.
Engraved
It’s not even an inscription with meticulously engraved words, planned precisely and for particular effect. No, this small, silver case simply has MacBride’s own scrawl inside. There are four lines, written one below the other. From the top down they read: 25th April, 1916. Major John MacBride. For Irelands honor. 25/4/16.’
He doesn’t have the full-stops, but he does have the comma after the word April. And it looks like he’s missing the apostrophe in Ireland’s, and the ‘u’ in honour.
It was obviously written spontaneously on that Tuesday, the second day of the Rising. It’s interesting that he repeats the date.
And then there are those three words – ‘For Irelands honor’. Talk about an emotional punch to the gut as you read them. Talk about history made real.
Twice I walked away from the glass case with the hat and the cigarette case and other personal items relating to the executed men of 1916. And twice I came back. Finally, I dragged myself away.
The 1916 exhibition wasn’t all I saw at Collins Barracks last Saturday. I’d gone specifically to see Kim Haughton’s photographic exhibition.
I knew Kim 20-odd years ago when she was starting out and so it was partly sentiment that prompted me to get into my car and drive from Wicklow to Arran Quay last weekend. And, boy, was it worth it – the work of this now internationally renowned photographer is so impressive. As is the museum itself.
What a setting Collins Barracks is for a museum. And the wonderful thing about it is that you don’t have to ‘do’ the whole thing. You can pick and choose, as I did last weekend. And, unlike so many museums in other cities around the world, our national museums and galleries are all free.
After spending time at Kim’s exhibition and at the 1916 one, and after a quick trip up to the third floor to see the rooms dedicated to the Irish architect Eileen Gray, I retired to the café in the courtyard and sat outside drinking tea and watching as the tourists – individuals and groups – started to pile in around lunchtime. All flocking in to see what we have to show for ourselves in this capital city of ours. And I felt a sense of pride, sitting there in the sunshine, watching them all arrive full of anticipation and knowing that they would not be leaving disappointed.
And so, buoyed up by my Collins Barracks experience, I then left the northside quays behind me and drove straight to Merrion Square. In I went through the National Gallery’s original magnificent entrance (I never really took to the one that opened on Clare Street in 2002). Again, no money changed hands.
I’d come to see the newly opened Dargan and Milltown wings, the gallery’s oldest spaces, after several years of closure for refurbishment.
One word for the transformation? Magnificent.
I’d wondered, listening in recent weeks to much talk on radio about the refurbishment, just how backdrop walls in blues and reds would actually work against such precious art. Well, what did I know? They are perfect.
The Jack B Yeats room is beautiful. The National Portrait Collection space is airy and accessible. And I loved the new light-filled modern courtyard (with seating, and a stunning olive ash sculpture by Cork artist Joseph Walsh) linking the two new wings.
All told, my Saturday outing was an uplifting and worthwhile experience that served to remind me not just of what a wealth of culture we have, but also of how we show it off so well.
But – one quibble – I wish the museums were open longer. Or that their hours were at least uniform. The national museums (Collins Barracks, Kildare Street and the Natural History Museum), for example, are closed on Mondays. The National Gallery isn’t. It opens at 9.15am, Monday to Saturday, while IMMA – its modern art equivalent at the Royal Hospital – is closed on Mondays and doesn’t open until 11.30am on other days, except Saturdays and Sundays when it opens at 10am and 12noon respectively.
Meanwhile, the National Gallery opens at 11am on a Sunday and the other aforementioned museums open at 2pm.
Confusing
Talk about confusing! And yes, I know that the National Gallery has late-night opening on a Thursday until 8.30pm which is very welcome. But come on, folks, the Prado in Madrid is open from 10am to 8pm every day except Sundays and bank holidays, and even then it’s open from 10am to 7pm. And the Paris Louvre is open from 9am to 6pm, and until 9.45pm on Wednesdays and Fridays.
When I was leaving the 1916 exhibition last Saturday, the usher who had greeted me warmly when I’d arrived (and whom I had witnessed painstakingly explaining some of the exhibits to a young student-aged Spaniard) looked at me questioningly as I came out. ‘Well?’ his eyes said to me, so I went over to him.
‘How brilliant is that?’ I said, nodding back towards the exhibition. ‘I know,’ he said, almost visibly puffing with pride. ‘It’s terrific, isn’t it?’
Well, how terrific indeed, I thought, that a middle-aged man who works here – day in and day out – is still taking pleasure and pride in what the museum is showcasing. And in his own history.
But that’s what good museums do. Be it pride, anger, joy, sadness, disgust or amazement, they trigger a personal reaction.
I’m still thinking about that inscription on John MacBride’s cigarette case. For Ireland’s honour. It could be the slogan for our national museums. One that – a few extra opening hours here and there notwithstanding – they manage to live up to every single day.