Our cultural heritage is under siege by bureaucratic barbarians at the gate

THE attempt of members of Athlone Town Council to remove an exhibit from a local gallery should not be dismissed as an isolated case of parochial philistinism and should alert the public to the dangers of the Government’s plan to merge the boards of the National Library and National Museum

In a plot line straight out of Father Ted, a number of councillors in Athlone have reacted with horror to a large installation by artist Shane Cullen, which painstakingly reproduces the messages of hunger-striking Republican prisoners that were smuggled out of the infamous H-Block prison in 1981.

However, instead of picketing the gallery with signs screaming “down with this sort of thing” or “careful now”, Fine Gael Councillor Mark Cooney opted to put down a motion at Monday’s local authority meeting calling for the art work to be removed.