Work has finally started on reinstating the ornate canopy of Dublin's Olympia Theatre almost three years after it was accidentally demolished when a truck backed into it on November 18th, 2004.
The work is expected to be completed in two weeks, after which the theatre is planning a "grand opening" of the restored stained-glass and cast-iron canopy, which dates from the late 19th century.
The canopy, which extended out to the edge of the footpath, will be better protected in future because Dublin City Council recently extended this stretch of footpath and put cast-iron bollards in place along it.
As the Olympia is a protected structure, its canopy had to be restored. Shortly before the canopy was hit by the truck the theatre was planning to dismantle it and have it sent to Scotland for restoration.
Instead, the damaged pieces had to be salvaged and put in storage before being shipped to the former William McFarlane foundry in Glasgow, where it was originally manufactured in the 1890s. But Heritage Engineering, the company which took over the foundry, subsequently went into liquidation, and this unfortunate event helps to explain why the restoration work has taken so long.
The Olympia, which started out as Dan Lowry's Empire Music Hall, is owned by music promoter Denis Desmond of MCD and is now mainly used for rock gigs rather than theatre.
Its once glorious interior has fallen into decline, with "tatty, bockety seats and grubby, squishy carpet [ making it] less and less pleasant to go to other shows there", as Irish Times arts editor Deirdre Falvey observed last April.
Restoration work has proceeded on a piecemeal basis, financed from the theatre's takings. However, there are plans to replace all the seating in the stalls, following the example of the much better-maintained Gaiety Theatre.
Apart from the loss of its canopy, the most serious event in the Olympia's history was the collapse of its proscenium arch in 1974.
This was only restored after a long campaign, led by such luminaries as the late Maureen Potter.
