Madam, - Your recent feature on Bewley's Café Theatre (Arts, November 22nd) surely points the way ahead for a widely-revered Dublin institution. All that may be required is a reconfiguration of the product mix. If coffee with a little theatre thrown in cannot be made to work, then who's to say that theatre with a little coffee on the side might not?
Of course, such a building could not easily yield up a single theatre space. But what's to stop an imaginative entrepreneur turning Bewley's labyrinthine configuration to advantage by letting the space to a co-operative of arts institutions on favourable leases?
Dublin has many arts centres dotted around the city but there are often reservations about their locations - witness the debates about the Abbey and IMMA. In addition, many people are reluctant to visit certain parts of Dublin in the evening.
Imagine then, a broad arts centre based in a splendid building in one of our most distinguished streets. Imagine such a space housing a writers' museum, a poetry Library, a gallery, a bookshop, a theatre where music, readings, and drama could be hosted, a bar and restaurant, maybe a Groucho-style arts club thrown in for good measure. Imagine hordes of foreign visitors flocking to a glorious one-stop cultural centre.
No greater demonstration of the art of having one's cake and eating it - on red banquettes with Bewley's coffee, of course - could be imagined. So let Bertie demonstrate those famous socialist credentials by greasing the wheels for a Bewley's Arts Centre on Grafton Street. - Yours, etc.,
BERT WRIGHT, Hillside, Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Why the rush of tears over the demise of Bewley's? In the past decade, we have acquiesced in the turning of churches into pubs and intimate streets into apartment fortresses. We've allowed our prime thoroughfares to be hamburgerised and our city centre to be desecrated by a metal spike.
So what's wrong with a giant convenience store in Westmoreland Street? Or making Stephen's Green earn its keep as a parking lot? Or bulldozing that obstructive hill at Tara?
How can our country progress if nostalgists forever bleat about civic pride and history? - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN LYNCH, Mid Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7.
Madam, - It seems that when all is said and done, Bewley's closed because it was too slow. It couldn't serve enough coffee or sticky buns per hour to pay the high rent. The customer turnover couldn't cover the overheads. But perhaps, to put it another way, we were moving too fast to slow down for a cup of coffee in Bewley's.
Maybe now we'll finally begin to understand the phrase, "Speed kills". - Yours, etc.,
ORAN DOYLE, Mount Argus Park, Dublin 6W.