The Tyrone Guthrie Centre is located on the shores of Annaghmakerrig Lake in County Monaghan, Ireland. It offers artists a quiet, reflective and homely environment in which to work for a period of time and is the oldest residential arts centre in Ireland. Because of its proximity to Northern Ireland, it has since its inception, being jointly funded by the Arts Councils of Dublin and Belfast as a flagship example of cross border co-operation. The 450-acre estate formerly belonged to Tyrone Guthrie, one of the most eminent theatre directors of the 20th century and was left by him to the State on condition that it was used as a retreat for artists. Since Tyrone Guthrie Centre opened twenty-eight years ago, many of the innumerable visitors to the house have commented on the fairytale aspect of the house and lake with its surrounding woods. Enter the white iron gates and there hanging in the air is the promise that something special lies ahead. And rarely is the visitor disappointed.
The ‘Big House’ as is it affectionately known can accommodate eleven residents; all of the rooms have a desk, an eclectic collection of books, and a large, fat dictionary. All but one of the rooms is en suite. In the Big House, food is provided for self-catered breakfasts and lunches and in accordance with Tyrone Guthrie’s Will everyone gathers in the large kitchen for the evening meal. The Centre has its own organic garden and a well-earned reputation for its excellent food. The Centre aims to provide a haven of peace, hence there is no radio or television in the house and Internet and email are available via satellite only in the residents’ office. In the summer residents swim or boat in Annaghmakerrig Lake. There is a poetry library and a small and equally eclectic library of books donated by former residents, books on the theatre from Tyrone Guthrie’s time and books of general interest. The Centre is involved with the Dublin Institute of Technology in an attempt to create a living archive of the artistic process in the Centre through a text-based ‘log’ ArtLog to which residents are invited to contribute.
Artists and arts workers everywhere express warm and spontaneous support for the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. There is a wide and positive consensus about the Centre. It is universally regarded as successfully providing a creative space, outside everyday life, which gives artists time and space to focus on ideas and work. It also respects and supports artists within a positive and affirming community. Throughout its short history, Annaghmakerrig has supported substantial creative endeavour as can be seen from the testimonials of various writers:
Eugene McCabe:
Guthrie’s paradoxical spirit still permeates Annaghmakerrig; genial, irreverent, humorous, generous and deadly serious about the importance of the disciplines that explore the meaning of life….. Beyond doubt Annaghmakerrig, long ago and now, is both a haven of peace and a proven hive of creativity.
Colm Toibin:
Annaghmakerrig is a wonderful place for a writer. It provides good silence and then later good company and great food. It also means that you can work side by side with painters and sculptors and composers and actors and other artists in an atmosphere which has many rich associations.
Eilís Ni Dhuibhne:
Returning to this magical place was like a homecoming. I’ve been very happy here. Thanks to everyone – staff, housemates– for keeping Annaghmakerrig special. It is the hidden, most resplendent jewel in Ireland’s cultural crown.
Last September the Tyrone Guthrie Centre published its first five-year strategic plan and at a special function in the Centre it was launched by Minister Mansergh.
Dr Martin Mansergh, TD,
Minister of State at the Department of Finance and Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism:
This centre is situated in a border country. The first steps towards establishing this centre were taken in the mid-1970s. I cannot help but find that remarkable. It was a decade when the awful reality of violence was forcing people to retreat from each other – behind peace walls, watchtowers and checkpoints into the illusory comfort of sectarian certainties and political dogma – a very different kind of retreat was being envisaged here in Annaghmakerrig.
There is something fitting about that. Because the first was a retreat born of failure – of the will, of the imagination and above all, of the heart – the second was a bold assertion of the worth of these self-same things. The creation of this centre, this artists’ retreat, was a declaration and these things matter – the creative impulse matters; the life of the imagination matters; magnanimity matters. Above all this is a place that reminds us that, when all rigid ideologies and grand strategies have been exhausted, it is to these we will always turn for solace, renewal and hope.
It is fitting too to remember that this is one of the oldest, though low profile, cross-border bodies. Since 1981, with the wholehearted support of both the Arts Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre has demonstrated in one sphere the viability and desirability of cross-border initiatives and bodies that have since on a wider scale become an integral part of new political dispensation. There is of course a cultural common ground across the island, and I have always deprecated the use of culture as a political weapon or as the continuation of conflict by other means. There is also an important distinction between national culture and Nationalist culture.
Since then, some 5,500 individual artists have stayed here – writers, playwrights and visual artists; composers, musicians and choreographers; established talents and promising one; from within and beyond Ireland’s shores – all of them here for that which the Tyrone Guthrie Centre offers them in unstinting abundance – time and space. That time and space is essential to the cultivation of their craft and the unfolding of the creative potential. In this way, the Centre has profoundly impacted upon the cultural life on this island.