Lights, Camera, Action for Galway’s White Elephant

Galway rejoiced on Tuesday as Arts Minister, Heather Humphreys, decided to shovel another €735,000 into the bottomless pit that is the Galway Picture Palace or ‘arthouse’ cinema.

This is being done under the pretence of Galway’s Capital of Culture 2020 bid, which we all must ‘back’ for fear of capital punishment.

Like the never-ending Rocky film series, building of the city’s arthouse cinema has turned into an endless saga. A very costly saga.

On its website, Solas, the company behind the arthouse cinema, lists three things to expect when it opens, including “a place where memories are made, never to be forgotten”.

It’s a project that certainly won’t be forgotten. The memories are more like nightmares, however. Who could ever forget the traffic jams associated with a lane of traffic being closed to facilitate construction? And we’ve lost count of how many deadlines were missed in this project, which has been beset with problems since it was first mooted in 2007.

Initially there were concerns about possible structural damage to adjoining properties; then the contractor, Cordil Construction, went into receivership; and then funding dried up.

The site, at Lower Merchant’s Road, was donated by the City Council, a €2 million gift. And what thanks did the local authority, and its ratepayers, reap from that generosity? They were asked in 2013 to bail out the project to the tune of €200,000, or €50,000 per year for four years.

This is on top of €2 million the Department says it already spent, a loan from the Western Development Commission, and now this latest grant of €735,000. How much has this project cost the Irish State to date, and when will we stop throwing good money after bad?

Having an arthouse cinema, we’re told, will greatly enhance the city’s reputation for arts and culture.

Bunkum. We already have two cinemas and several other buildings in public ownership – including the Black Box and Town Hall Theatre – that can be used to screen obscure movies. Because that’s what this is about – screening arthouse films.

And arthouse films, by their nature – with subtitles and non-mainstream subject matter – are by their very nature, niche. And niche means there’s a very small market, and that means high ticket prices, or taxpayer-subsidised ones.

Think of how many Macnas parades you would get for €735,000; or how many individual local artists you could support with that largesse, which might actually boost our arts and culture credentials.

And anyway, if Galway is successful in its 2020 Capital of Culture bid, can we be assured the Picture Palace will be finished by then? Not based on its record to date.

Also in this week’s Bradley Bytes – only in this week’s City Tribune

Heather’s Hump

Frankeen’s Free Praise

Lovely Lorraine and Nice Noel