Colgan accuser ‘not afraid of legal action’
Writer claims former Gate chief made string of lewd remarks
THE woman at the centre of online allegations against former Gate Theatre artistic director Michael Colgan says she’s not afraid of legal action.
Grace Dyas, a director, writer and producer, wants to give victims of sexually inappropriate and lewd comments the power to go public and will use her blog to ‘encourage courage’ on the issue.
Ms Dyas told the Irish Daily Mail she was willing to take on any attempt to sue her for defamation over posts on her blog because she ‘100%’ believes them to be true.
The Mail understands that Mr Colgan has made contact with his solicitor, Paul Tweed, about Ms Dyas’s blog.
‘I want to stand up and encourage courage,’ she told the Mail.
After she published her blog, Ms Dyas says trolls abused and ‘Going public’: Grace Dyas threatened her on Twitter. The tweets have since been removed after they were reported.
While she said the online abuse had ‘upset’ her, she did not wish to ‘give them air’ in detail, but said ‘the dark side [of social media] had come out’.
Ms Dyas claims Mr Colgan, who stepped down from his role earlier this year, made inappropriate comments of a sexual nature witnessed by work colleagues.
She wrote on her online Tumblr blog that Mr Colgan told her that she had lost so much weight: ‘I’d almost have sex with you.’
Mr Colgan later denied making the comment and also denied sending texts to Ms Dyas – which she also published – in which he accuses her of being ‘a base liar’ and ‘evil’.
Ms Dyas writes that Mr Colgan was drinking at a party in the Oak Bar on Dame Street in July of last year and asked her if she had lost weight.
‘I said, “yeah, I lost weight for my wedding, I just got married”,’ she writes. She then says that Mr Colgan said: ‘You’ve lost so much weight, I’d almost have sex with you.
‘I was taken aback but not surprised. I said, “Michael, you can’t say that to me! He replied: “What? I didn’t say I would f*** you. You haven’t lost that much weight.”’
Award-winning Ms Dyas says she then confronted Mr Colgan over the ‘inappropriate and unacceptable’ comments, only to be told that she was a ‘pig’ and that he would ‘never ever, ever want to have sex with’ her, after which Mr Colgan denied the comments ever occurred. ‘Michael was up on his feet roaring at me,’ she writes. ‘He turned on a coin. He was now saying he never said any such thing. I gave as good as I got. He called me a liar. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I never want to breathe the same [air] as you,” [he said].’
Ms Dyas told the Mail that she was ‘very clear’ that she named Mr Colgan in her writing as ‘others could think a claim was about them’ if she hadn’t.
Mr Colgan stepped down from his post as artistic director earlier this year after over 33 years in the job and in 2010, he was awarded an OBE. In 2015, his salary of €231,000 caused controversy when the Gate’s largest funder, the Arts Council, described the package as ‘disproportionate’.
Sustained efforts by the Mail to contact Mr Colgan were yesterday unsuccessful.