Although not always the most reliable or helpful of guides to an institution's popularity, statistics can sometimes be irresistible. At the Chester Beatty Library, for example, it is quite possible that annual visitor numbers might rise by no less than 2,500 per cent over the next year. As a statistic, this is unquestionably impressive. The library, which holds one of the world's greatest collections of oriental manuscripts along with an enormous amount of other material, officially opens on Monday in Dublin Castle. Until last November, it was housed in a little-visited building on Dublin's Shrewsbury Road, a street known for sheltering the financially rather than the aesthetically well-endowed. The library's new home ought to draw many more visitors simply because the location is better.
The move into central Dublin had been planned for some time and was regarded by the institution's board as essential, not least because the former site attracted so few visitors; an average of 6,000 each year. The library's director, Dr Michael Ryan believes this figure could now rise to 150,000, but cautions against excessive interest in numbers because too many visitors could be as disadvantageous as too few. Admission to the Chester Beatty Library has always been free and this will continue to be the case.
Other than the same lack of entrance fee, few points of comparison exist between the Shrewsbury Road and the Dublin Castle libraries. The latter incorporates purpose-built galleries on two floors providing four times more space than before for exhibiting the library's treasures. Work on this building has taken more than five years to complete and cost £5.5 million for construction alone; of this, some £2.5 million came from EU structural funds. At least £6 million was then spent on fitting out the new library, paid for by the sale last November of the Shrewsbury Road property.
Housed behind the facade of Dublin Castle's old clock-tower building are a wealth of new facilities. These include a conservation laboratory and photographic studio, a 90-seat lecture theatre, a restaurant, a bookshop and a bamboo-planted roof garden with views across the city. There is also a reference library, currently containing 7,000 books; this number will rapidly grow as approximately £30,000 will be spent on acquisitions in this year alone. The reference library is furnished with cases made by Hicks of Dublin for the Shrewsbury Road site and, wherever possible, other items from that building have been recycled.
The most important section of the Chester Beatty Library is a recently completed structure designed by Office of Public Works architect Angela Rolfe with the exhibition displays designed by Event Communications Ireland Ltd. The two principal galleries run to some 440 square metres each and a temporary exhibition room measures 100 square metres. The lower gallery is dedicated to the art of the book and printed material predominantly from the secular world. Original material is supplemented by a variety of audio-visual displays looking at such areas as the history of book and paper production, binding, calligraphy and pigments. Neither in this area nor that above it is natural daylight permitted; Dr Ryan says that even in darkened conditions, most work on display will be changed every 12 weeks in order to provide maximum protection.
The upper gallery focuses on the world's great religions which are represented in the library's holdings, particularly Christianity, Islam and the faiths of eastern Asia such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. As below, thanks to the provision of more exhibition space, many items will be on public display for the first time. Among the largest of these is a newly-restored Nepalese cosmological painting some 1.5 square metres in size.
Dr Ryan is keen to stress that the library, despite its exceptionally rich holdings, continues to acquire new material, albeit "in a modest way". He says he cannot state with any precision just how much of the collection will be on show at any time, only that it is more than before. Another area to register an increase is the institution's annual governmental grant, which has quadrupled over the past seven years to stand at £667,000 in 1999. This sum must cover all running costs, because Chester Beatty left no endowment to support the library he gave to the State. While it has the status of an independent charitable trust, an amendment to the terms of the trust in 1997 allowed the government to appoint three board members. Last year, Dr Ryan received permission to double his staff numbers and the library now has 24 full-time employees, but it is also dependent on volunteers, students and part-time workers.
Who was Chester Beatty? Alfred Chester Beatty was born in New York in 1875; his paternal grandparents were Irish but he otherwise had no connection with this country. As a young man, he showed an interest in mineral samples and subsequently he chose a career as a mining engineer. After graduating from Columbia University, he went to Denver, Colorado where, thanks to working in the gold mines, within 10 years he became a millionaire. Having moved to London, in the 1920s his own mining company became enormously successful in Africa, particularly Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).
Although he became a naturalised British citizen in 1933, he was disappointed with the election of a Labour government after the second World War and so, at the age of 75, in May 1950 he moved to Ireland, which he described as "the best country in the world in which to retire . . . life goes on as it did elsewhere until 1939".
However, unable to endure Irish winters, he spent only from May to September each year in this country, passing the rest of the year in the south of France. In July 1954, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Beatty, but a month later his library and gallery was officially opened on Shrewsbury Road by the then Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera. Beatty had become an ardent collector following his move to Europe before the first World War and his interest in oriental art was fuelled by a trip to Japan and China in 1917. He believed in buying only the finest items, saying "It is no good keeping things that are not first class." When he moved to Dublin in the middle of the last century, he brought with him no less than 35 tonnes of art works, which now form the bulk of the collection he left to the Irish people on his death in January 1968.
The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle opens to the public on Tuesday, February 8th. Opening hours: Tues-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m.-5 p.m.
This article appears with further information on the Chester Beatty Library's new premises and 360 degree panoramic images of the interior on The Irish Times web site at: www.ireland.com/dublin/