'We really are in a celebratory mood': STAC marks 30 years of arts in Clonmel

South Tipperary Arts Centre has battled with funding and other issues through the decades, but expansion plans and a retrospective exhibition show how the facility is very much on track 

Pictured at the opening of STAC at 30,  at South Tipperary Arts Centre, were artistic director/curator Helena Tobin,  artist Alice Maher, and board member/art historian Catherine Marshall. Picture: John D Kelly 

The former bus station on Nelson Street, Clonmel, may have seemed an unusual location for South Tipperary Arts Centre when it first opened its doors in April 1996. But it had its advantages, apparently. 

“It was a public building that people had been using since the 1940s, so it had that going for it,” says Catherine Marshall, a long-time member of the STAC board.