Sir, – Minister for the Arts Jimmy Deenihan’s reported proposal to take back into public ownership the old Irish Parliament building in College Green (July 9th) is a vision that had the support of more than one recent taoiseach. A scepticism about its value as another State-subsidised cultural centre has also been expressed on your opinion page (Mick Heaney, July 15th).
Might this be a case, where, in Laurence Sterne's immortal words, "They order this matter better in France"? The future of a similarly palatial building, completed the same year, 1768, that A Sentimental Journeywas published, soon to be vacated by the marine ministry, and which forms the principal architectural backdrop to the Place de la Concorde in the centre of Paris, has been considered by a commission chaired by former president Giscard d'Estaing. It has just recommended it should be handed over to the Louvre for its original purpose of housing and exhibiting French treasures, including the crown jewels. An opposing minority view is that France should not be turned into a museum park. The criteria employed by the commission include maintenance under the sovereignty of the state of monuments strongly linked to its history, guaranteed public access, and the principle that properties housing sovereign activities of the French people and which are of a major historical and architectural interest should be neither sold nor let, but belong to the French people.
If one were to apply this approach to the old Irish Parliament building, its major historical and architectural interest, despite subsequent internal alterations by Francis Johnston, is indisputable. Moreover, between the Declaratory Act of 1783 and the Act of Union in 1800, the Irish Parliament was legislatively sovereign, while uniquely in our history having effective as well as nominal jurisdiction over the entire island. Indeed, the adviser on Ireland to Lloyd George and Churchill, Lionel Curtis, expressed private satisfaction that the treaty did not involve repeal of the Act of Union and reversion to the Declaratory Act, which would have allowed the Free State draw up its own constitution without British approval. Though very unrepresentative, Grattan’s parliament was an inspiration to generations of nationalists from Daniel O’Connell to Arthur Griffith.
The intended alterations to the parliamentary chambers on behalf of its new owner, the Bank of Ireland, were, in the words of a letter to the first post-Union lord lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, “to preclude their being used upon any contingency as public debating rooms”, ie under no circumstances was Ireland to have its own parliament again. While the Bank of Ireland has taken good care, and made good use, of the building in the intervening 200 years, there is still a lingering sense of injustice, which could in current circumstances be put right. The prestige building in College Green is no longer the headquarters of the Bank of Ireland. Church of Ireland bishops and archbishops have long since vacated their palaces in Armagh, Cashel, Kilkenny, Kilmore and Waterford, to allow their more effective public use and access.
To restore the Parliament Building to the people could provide a welcome symbolic boost to the ongoing struggle for recovery of our sovereignty. It could also be a magnificent cultural and tourist asset. Like the palace of Versailles, it could, among other uses, have a permanent exhibition on our entire parliamentary history, as well as host perhaps occasional extraordinary and ceremonial inter-parliamentary occasions. Taking account of its later history, it could also house a museum of banking. Notwithstanding our difficulties, which need in particular French understanding, perhaps we could share some of their self-confidence expressed in a headline in a current supplement of Le Monde: "Face à la crise, vive la culture!" – Yours, etc,