City celebrates opening of youth drama facility

ARTS Minister John O’Donoghue will open Cork’s newest cultural facility for young people today.

He will also open an exhibition at the city’s Crawford Art Gallery that recalls leaner times in the city, while ensuring that the gallery’s fortunes continue to rise.

It is hoped the exhibition, Whipping The Herring, will be the last presented by the Crawford Municipal Gallery of Art — as the gallery is to make the jump in status from a municipal gallery to National Cultural Institution (NC), on adoption by the Arts Department.

Other NCIs include IMMA, The Chester Beattie Gallery and the Hugh Lane Gallery, but the Crawford will be the first outside Dublin.

It is hoped that the minister will be in a position to formally kick-start the process this evening.

Meanwhile, the new Graffiti Theatre building in the former chapel of Assumption Convent in Blackpool is set to provide an invaluable resource to the young people of Cork city and beyond.

It has been coverted to include an auditorium, rehearsal studio, offices and ancillary facilities.

Graffiti’s move came after Cork City Council decided last May to relocate them from their 18th century home at Weighmaster’s House on Church Street.

The council spent €250,000 regenerating the chapel adjoining the Assumption Convent to facilitate the move.

It has also acquired the adjoining Butter Museum and craft centre, and will amalgamate the properties for a use as yet undetermined.

Graffiti chief executive Emelie Fitzgibbon described the new building as a “wonderful facility”.

“This will enable us to extend and develop our programming and our profile,” she said.

“It will assist us in the future in providing work for family audiences in a small dedicated theatre space.

“The city also gains in extending its cultural infrastructure to acknowledge specifically and publicly the cultural rights of its young citizens.”