A chara, – There is a perfect premises for the Seanad in Rathmines.
Dublin Institute of Technology’s college of music is due to relocate to the DIT Grangegorman campus. It is proposed that Rathmines senior college should cross the road and relocate in its original premises, thus vacating Rathmines Town Hall.
Rathmines Town Hall was designed by Sir Thomas Drew in 1896 for the town commissioners. There was a council chamber and an assembly hall on the first floor. The council chamber remains intact but the assembly hall has been divided into smaller classrooms.
It seems to me that moving the Senate to Rathmines, a mere 2km from Kildare Street, would not be as expensive or disruptive as the proposed move to the National Museum.
– Yours, etc,
ELIZABETH SMITH
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Not so very long ago I voted to retain the Seanad. At the time I had to actively defend my intended voting decision among many of my good friends and acquaintances who simply couldn’t see the value of retaining a Seanad in modern Ireland.
My argument was, and still is, that a senate can be a hugely important forum where wiser and more thoughtful council can prevail. It’s where important matters of state can be debated in depth for the longer-term protection of our cultural values. That’s what the Seanad should be.
That’s why I am loudly crying out “for shame” to each Senator who agrees to attend future Senate meetings or activities in the cultural space that belongs to all of us through our National Museum.
Please don’t attend!
– Yours, etc,
ROBERT HAYES-McCOY
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.