Profile Fiach Mac Conghail: Could Fiach Mac Conghail be the late birthday present the troubled National Theatre has been waiting for, asks Shane Hegarty
Fiach Mac Conghail's rise to prominence has been so smooth that even when he hits a bump he lands the right way up. In 1999, he applied for the job of artistic director of the National Theatre but was passed over in favour of Ben Barnes. It might have been the best thing that could have happened to him.
Five years on, and Mac Conghail has landed the job that he desperately wanted before, but between times he has become an altogether different candidate. He has since run Irish cultural events abroad, produced further plays at home, commissioned the cultural programme for Ireland's EU presidency, and been awarded a prestigious scholarship as one of 25 "emerging leaders" from around the world. But more than all of this, he has made new friends and influenced important people. And in artistic circles, there are few more important friends than the Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue. As the Minister's chief adviser since 2002, Mac Conghail has been described as "the most influential and important figure in the arts world".
As head of the Abbey, he will take on the daunting challenge of re-establishing the theatre as one of the nation's most important cultural institutions in actuality rather than just in tattered reputation. If he had been given the job back in 1999, though, he would likely have become mired in the tribulations of an ailing company stuck in a crumbling building. By the time he takes over, with the theatre's antiquated management structure being overhauled, he will have the chance to shape the future at a time when there is both the artistic and political will to deal with a very public mess.
When the news was announced to the theatre's staff on Tuesday, one employee stood up and said that, while meaning no disrespect to any other candidate, Mac Conghail was the right man for the job. For many he was the only choice. The newly designated position of "director" brings together artistic and management responsibilities, and Mac Conghail has a reputation not only as creatively ambitious but also as a "fixer". But what makes him so crucial to the Abbey it is that he arrives not just with political nous but with the political clout to back it up.
When John O'Donoghue became Minister for Arts in 2002, he turned to Mac Conghail as the person who would guide him through a world of which he admitted he had limited understanding. The two have developed a strong working relationship, and Mac Conghail has had significant influence over such matters as the appointment of a new Arts Council and director, as well as over arts spending during an uncertain period. Even if he had not been given the Abbey post, he would already have had some influence on the reshaping of the theatre's management structure, one of the conditions of a €2 million grant given by the Minister to the National Theatre last year. For the Abbey to have someone so obviously popular with the Government might be seen as a late 100th birthday present.
Mac Conghail was born in 1964. The eldest of five children, he grew up in an Irish-speaking Rathgar family. His mother, Maire Doran, is a genealogist and his father, Muiris Mac Conghail, a former RTÉ controller of programmes. His grandfather was painter Maurice Mac Gonigal, whose work he has collected in recent years.
The young Fiach studied politics and sociology at Trinity College, Dublin. Taking two years off after his second year, he worked in a Burger King in Copenhagen while trying to figure out what to do with his life. Returning to Dublin, he completed his degree and worked as a visual arts officer at the Arts Council.
His first theatrical job was with Joe Dowling at the Gaiety School of Acting. He once said that he got into theatre because it was something his father wasn't involved with.
"My relationship with my father was always stormy, complicated, bloody difficult. There were terrible clashes," he has admitted, before adding that it had improved greatly in adult life. In the late 1980s, he was an assistant to the Abbey's then artistic director, Noel Pearson, and it was during this time that he developed the ambition to run the place himself eventually.
WHILE DOING AN RTÉ radio producer's course in 1992, he got the job of artistic director at Project Arts Centre. During a seven-year tenure, he rejuvenated the Project's reputation for ground-breaking work and became known as someone who could marry creativity with the ability to get things done. He was also seen as someone who tended to put the artist at the centre of the process. There is, though, some doubt over his legacy at Project, mainly in relation to the redevelopment of its Temple Bar premises. While Mac Conghail wanted a building that would invite curiosity, the Project façade is instead intimidating and unfriendly to the passer-by. There have also been criticisms of its inflexible visual arts space, which some consider inferior to what went before it.
He left Project to become Ireland's EXPO director at Hanover 2000, and also produced plays, including Marina Carr's Ariel (at the Abbey) and Alan Gilsenan's adaptation of John Banville's The Book of Evidence.
He has managed visual arts projects, and with his brother, Cuan, has produced three short films for writer Paul Mercier. On Monday, filming begins on a film version of Mercier's Studs, a project he's been trying to get off the ground for several years.
He revels in the company of actors, meeting his wife, actor Brid Ni Neachtain, in the Abbey. They have two daughters. He is a gregarious character, never shy of his opinions, and that personality will come in handy in his new role.
"He can schmooze with the best of them," remarked one acquaintance this week.
While Ben Barnes or his predecessor, Patrick Mason, would have balked at the notion of fund-raising dinners and pressing the flesh in order to prise open chequebooks, it should be no problem for Mac Conghail.
HIS CONTRACT IS for an atypical five years, but he will not take full control until the end of this year. By then the National Theatre Society will have been dissolved and replaced by a new company, and the management structures will have been streamlined. Unlike previous "artistic directors", his adapted role means that he will not be lost in weeks of rehearsals at crucial times.
By the time he takes over Mac Conghail may have a clearer idea of when the Abbey will move to new premises, although this has been discussed for so long that it's become an embarrassment. In 2001, he was asked by The Irish Times for his thoughts on where the Abbey should be situated.
"I think that the Abbey should move out of the current site because of its lack of creative space there, but I don't think moving to the southside is necessarily the panacea," he said. "The Abbey Theatre should make an architectural statement in terms of the city of Dublin. There are other sites, in places such as O'Connell Street and the Buckingham Street area."
He added: "There's a big journey and a big debate to be had about where to go to."
The debate happened, but the journey didn't, and Mac Conghail acknowledged this week that any move is unlikely to be completed within his current contract.
Meanwhile, he promises more experimental writing and a re-engagement with contemporary Ireland. The Abbey has already been developing new writing, but aside from the offstage drama, its centenary year will be remembered mostly for the Oirish melodrama of The Shaughraun.
"Basically I want to serve the artist. I discovered that very early in life," he has said. "My father has always had an eye for talent. So do I."
His appointment has been met with widespread approval from within the theatre and arts world, but the honeymoon period will not last long. Be careful what you wish for, as they say, because it might just come true. He has the job he always wanted, but now he'll discover if the Abbey is too broken for even this fixer.