Making a virtue of necessity, Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Centre has triumphed over its tight location in Cathedral Quarter, writes Paul Harron.
In April, Belfast will, at last, be able to boast a city-centre visual arts and performance space absolutely worthy of an international audience. The NI Tourist Board’s branding of 2012 as the year in which Northern Ireland can claim that it’s ‘our time, our place’ finds manifestation in bricks and mortar in several new and recently built locations; however, nowhere more firmly than the new MAC in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. It is a building housing three art galleries; two theatres; dance and artists’ studios; a central circulation space which excites the senses while providing all the necessary sociable requirements which such a facility needs; and which, most significantly, is a structure of civic stature and presence.
Muirne Lydon reveals the original brilliance of Murillo’s Prodigal Son as degraded varnish and old restorations are painstakingly removed from the 17th-century series at the National Gallery of Ireland
Using a selection of germane quotations Rolf Loeber recalls his mentor, the late Maurice Craig; their literary exchange taking the form of a tete-a-tete.
Cosmopolitan yet connected to local issues, Mervyn Wingfield, 7th Viscount Powerscourt played a prominent role in promoting Ireland’s cultural institutions at a pivotal time in their early history, writes Philip McEvansoneya