Sir, - Regarding the tragedy that is threatening the very existence of the Irish Museum of Modern Art over the past few weeks, I fail to understand why this city's eloquent art writers, with an investigative bent to their pens, have been standing silently on the sidelines.
Surely this is not a time for pussyfooting around while we watch one of our finest art institutions founder in a web of secrecy. For founder it most certainly will unless someone urgently reports the accurate facts and takes appropriate action to save it.
I have only recently met the chairman, Marie Donnelly, but I have known Declan McGonagle since he was a young Irish director of genius at the ICA in London in the early 1980s, where he was highly respected. More recently, with hundreds of other art lovers, I have watched him turn a marginalised historic building into a magical place of art for all, an institution which has something to interest tastes right across the art spectrum. He has managed to surround himself with one of the finest groups of loyal and dedicated staff who work for him without regard to time or personal reward. He has also managed to inspire and encourage collectors, large and small, to donate and lend on initial long-term loans, to enrich this young growing museum.
Nothing I could say on this page could seek to do justice to Mr McGonagle's ability and commitment. For any newly appointed chairperson to remove such a director while he is still developing the Museum nationally and internationally seems inexplicable.
I am a very recent lender and donor to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, but I know as I write, for an absolute fact, of several major collectors who, like myself, are seriously reconsidering their positions if this action is allowed to continue.
By condoning this action, the Government is acquiescing in potentially the worst blow possible to the visual arts in Ireland, arts which it has cradled so successfully for the past 30 years. - Yours, etc.,
George McClelland, Dublin 4.