limerick city of sub culture

jmch81

Two additional appointments to the board of the city of culture:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/sidelined-councillors-spark-new-culture-row-29897053.html

Not sure why they needed to appoint two Councillors, according to the article Conn appointed them without consulting others. The other Councillors are annoyed that they aren't getting a go!

Local councillor John Gilligan told the Irish Independent that he was unhappy with how the selection process for new board members was run.

Labour councillor Tom Shortt said: "Councillors have been sidelined. This scandal has shown that we, as elected representatives, need to wrestle power back from Mr Murray.

Not sure if keeping Councillors out of selection/voting is a bad thing.

Wilbert13

Keeping those two mé féiners as far away as possible can only be positive

flutered

Wilbert13 wrote: »

Keeping those two mé féiners as far away as possible can only be positive

possibly you are correct, but the point being made is that the two appointments were only made by herr furrer.

Nesta99

I wonder if there was a look through appointments made at Louth Local Authorities during the 5 years Conn Murray was County Manager would any 'form' be thrown up?

Midnight Shadow

jmch81 wrote: »

Two additional appointments to the board of the city of culture:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/sidelined-councillors-spark-new-culture-row-29897053.html

Not sure why they needed to appoint two Councillors, according to the article Conn appointed them without consulting others. The other Councillors are annoyed that they aren't getting a go!

Local councillor John Gilligan told the Irish Independent that he was unhappy with how the selection process for new board members was run.

Labour councillor Tom Shortt said: "Councillors have been sidelined. This scandal has shown that we, as elected representatives, need to wrestle power back from Mr Murray.

Not sure if keeping Councillors out of selection/voting is a bad thing.

Ha ha ...you couldn't make this stuff up!!
When I was a kid there was an RTE programme called Hall's Pictorial Weekly and it did a skit every week of the "Ballymagash Urban Council" meetings which was a pisstake of local government in Ireland at the time (I just had a look at an old episode on youtube)....Whats funny and scary is that nothing in this banana republic has changed

lufties

Midnight Shadow wrote: »

Ha ha ...you couldn't make this stuff up!!
When I was a kid there was an RTE programme called Hall's Pictorial Weekly and it did a skit every week of the "Ballymagash Urban Council" meetings which was a pisstake of local government in Ireland at the time (I just had a look at an old episode on youtube)....Whats funny and scary is that nothing in this banana republic has changed

But surely to god short and murray are on the same gravy train side. Why is he saying politicians need to wrestle back the power from him when murray is practically a politician himself

Wilbert13

flutered wrote: »

possibly you are correct, but the point being made is that the two appointments were only made by herr furrer.

I understand the point that is being made by these two but the reality is that this needs to move forward, the correct two people were appointed insofar as members of the council being on the board but all Shortt and Gilligan want is a soapbox which would only hinder the project further

mazzy maz

lufties wrote: »

But surely to god short and murray are on the same gravy train side. Why is he saying politicians need to wrestle back the power from him when murray is practically a politician himself

Murray's not a politician, he's a council employee who reports to the city council, which itself is made up of elected politicians. So what you're referring to is essentially elected politicians trying to reassert their authority over city employees i.e. Murray.

Murray's in a sticky situation. He already has a fair amount of responsibility being the city manager. He's also a board member of Limerick city of culture and, by the looks of it, got lumped with performing the work of the entire board (which was not, in my opinion, constituted with the requisite built-in flexibility i.e. most of the board is comprised of people with significant dayjob commitments and as far as I can tell most of them don't even live within a hundred kilometres of Limerick) on certain occasions, most notably the recruitment of a CEO.

By rights, Cox, as chairman of the board, should've formed a subcommittee and tasked them with recruiting the CEO. But he simply delegated it to Murray who was under severe pressure to appoint a CEO sharpish after Noonan and Deenihan apparently decided Wallace wan't up to the job of running City of Culture himself.

Cox, Deenihan et al obviously thought the whole city of culture thing would be a walk in the park and I don't believe ever dreamt board duties would turn out to be so demanding.

Personally, I think it's very unfortunate that Patricia Ryan became the focus of so much bile, she's acted as a very effective mudguard for the likes of Cox and Deenihan (Deenihan in particular) whose lack of foresight and consideration for how much time and planning it takes to pull off something like the city of culture programme takes set the wheels rolling on the whole debacle.

bigpink

So the gravy train moves on?people getting 2 wages?

I wonder will any details of the gig tender be made pubic/money made etc

mazzy maz

bigpink wrote: »

So the gravy train moves on?people getting 2 wages?

I wonder will any details of the gig tender be made pubic/money made etc

None of the board members are actually being paid for their time as far as I'm aware, tis all done pro bono. Not that there's anything wrong with suitably qualified people getting paid for their time.

bigpink

Good to hear makes a change
So what has become of youyr man richie ryan?

mazzy maz

Presumably he's continuing with his day job, which is running a drama school and putting on pantos and the like. He's been getting dog's abuse the last week or so, I'd say it'll be a while before he sticks his neck out again.

ninty9er

I fail to see what was wrong with Patricia Ryan's credentials. Certainly she was appointed in a less than kosher manner, but it's this concept that a brickie should be the CEO of a construction company, lecturers should head universities and engineers should head aerospace companies etc that exists that has caused an economic meltdown in our country.

The role of a CEO is to ensure "things" happen (what "things" doesn't necessarily matter -that's someone else's job), budgets are adhered to (by what means doesn't matter - that's someone else's problem) and that everyone knows what vision the organisation is working to.

Here's a Forbes article from a startup CEO:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylewong/2013/11/28/quantified-startup-what-does-a-startup-ceo-actually-do/2/

The CEO of this project doesn't need to know what exactly is happening, they just need to be informed that x, y and z are contributing to the overall goal of Limerick having a fantastic exhibition of culture. Perhaps if certain individuals extracted their craniums from their rectums they might see that.

mazzy maz

ninty9er wrote: »

I fail to see what was wrong with Patricia Ryan's credentials. Certainly she was appointed in a less than kosher manner, but it's this concept that a brickie should be the CEO of a construction company, lecturers should head universities and engineers should head aerospace companies etc that exists that has caused an economic meltdown in our country.

The role of a CEO is to ensure "things" happen (what "things" doesn't necessarily matter -that's someone else's job), budgets are adhered to (by what means doesn't matter - that's someone else's problem) and that everyone knows what vision the organisation is working to.

Here's a Forbes article from a startup CEO:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylewong/2013/11/28/quantified-startup-what-does-a-startup-ceo-actually-do/2/

The CEO of this project doesn't need to know what exactly is happening, they just need to be informed that x, y and z are contributing to the overall goal of Limerick having a fantastic exhibition of culture. Perhaps if certain individuals extracted their craniums from their rectums they might see that.

Yeah, you're right.

The problem in this case, however, was that the CEO position was only dreamt up after Wallace's funding proposal was rejected by Deenihan and it was decided that Wallace wasn't the man to lead the project. As such, it was fairly natural for Wallace to feel undermined by Ryan's appointment (Ryan having already been brought in in a consultancy capacity to redraft Wallace's rejected funding proposal).

In addition, it's now pretty clear that Wallace was seen by a certain section of the local arts community to be "their man" and that their influence on the whole project was, by extension, also being undermined. Hence the wider hissy fit and associated public attacks on Patricia Ryan.

Enter Richie Ryan, who was carrying a giant chip on his shoulder at not being included in Wallace's inner circle, and his fairly shameless attempt to wrest control of things from what I'm sure he would be perceive as more elitist/snobbier sections of the local arts community.

jbkenn

mazzy maz wrote: »

Enter Richie Ryan, who was carrying a giant chip on his shoulder at not being included in Wallace's inner circle, and his fairly shameless attempt to wrest control of things from what I'm sure he would be perceive as more elitist/snobbier sections of the local arts community.

I trust you have some evidence to back up these assertions?.
My tuppence worth, I am not involved in any capacity in the "arts community", whatever that is, I would'nt know a Cézanne from a roll of wallpaper, but, I do have a passionate interest in my city, so, when I saw and read the shennanigans that were going on re the City of Culture, it piqued my interest, I saw the notification of the meeting organised by Ritchie Ryan for Shannon Boat Club, I decided to attend and see what the story was with all of this carry on, when I saw that the meeting had been transferred to the Clarion I decided I was definitely going, this would be too good to miss.
The rest as they say is history, say or think what you will about Ritchie Ryan, I dont know the man personally, other than to say hello to, but, I will give him this, by showing the initiative in calling the original meeting, and, by agreeing to move the meeting to the Clarion at the request of the Board of the City of Culture, Ritchie Ryan facilitated a real example of citizen democracy, for the first time ever, the citizen went eyeball to eyeball with city hall and city hall blinked, that achievement alone,to me, is worth 100 City's of Culture, now mazzy maz..... remind me again what you contribution was?

mazzy maz

jbkenn wrote: »

I trust you have some evidence to back up these assertions?.

The evidence, such as it is, is the fact that he's seen fit to mention his perceived exclusion from city of culture in every radio/media appearance he's made since new year's eve (why Richie feels Wallace should've been consulting him personally on the City of Culture programme says a lot about his sense of self importance as regards the arts in Limerick and, in the minds of a lot of people, his motivation regarding his "selfless" acts surrounding the public meeting and his offer to assume the role of artistic director). Not to mention a thinly veiled facebook attack (now deleted) he made on a member of a rival arts clique aligned with Wallace.

jbkenn wrote: »

My tuppence worth, I am not involved in any capacity in the "arts community", whatever that is, I would'nt know a Cézanne from a roll of wallpaper, but, I do have a passionate interest in my city, so, when I saw and read the shennanigans that were going on re the City of Culture, it piqued my interest, I saw the notification of the meeting organised by Ritchie Ryan for Shannon Boat Club, I decided to attend and see what the story was with all of this carry on, when I saw that the meeting had been transferred to the Clarion I decided I was definitely going, this would be too good to miss.
The rest as they say is history, say or think what you will about Ritchie Ryan, I dont know the man personally, other than to say hello to, but, I will give him this, by showing the initiative in calling the original meeting, and, by agreeing to move the meeting to the Clarion at the request of the Board of the City of Culture, Ritchie Ryan facilitated a real example of citizen democracy, for the first time ever, the citizen went eyeball to eyeball with city hall and city hall blinked, that achievement alone,to me, is worth 100 City's of Culture, now mazzy maz..... remind me again what you contribution was?

Yeah, fair play to him, it was a gutsy move. Funny how he only made his move once the coveted position of artistic director had been vacated and not a couple months back when Patricia Ryan was first appointed CEO without a public competition...

Look, I don't know him, but Richie is clearly a decent guy. However, if his media appearances and social media interactions are anything to go by, he got fairly carried away with himself after the public meeting and made a very public play for the City of Culture "throne", which is gonna bring him a lot of attention, some of it unwanted.

As to my personal contribution; it's irrelevant. I'm a taxpayer and citizen of Limerick and am free to comment as I see fit on matters of public interest.

By the way, the whole "what have you ever done" defence is the rallying cry of every self-obsessed gombeen this country has ever produced. A valid argument it does not make.

jbkenn

mazzy maz wrote: »

The evidence, such as it is, is the fact that he's seen fit to mention his perceived exclusion from city of culture in every radio/media appearance he's made since new year's eve (why Richie feels Wallace should've been consulting him personally on the City of Culture programme says a lot about his sense of self importance as regards the arts in Limerick and, in the minds of a lot of people, his motivation regarding his "selfless" acts surrounding the public meeting and his offer to assume the role of artistic director). Not to mention a thinly veiled facebook attack (now deleted) he made on a member of a rival arts clique aligned with Wallace.

As I thought, I did not hear any of his radio interviews, nor do I follow his activities on social media.

Yeah, fair play to him, it was a gutsy move. Funny how he only made his move once the coveted position of artistic director had been vacated and not a couple months back when Patricia Ryan was first appointed CEO without a public competition...

If you had been at the meeting on Friday night, you wpuld have seen that the majority of attendee's were there to demand Karl Wallace's reinstatement, if as you say Ritchie Ryan coveted the position he went a funny way about it.

Look, I don't know him, but Richie is clearly a decent guy. However, if his media appearances and social media interactions are anything to go by, he got fairly carried away with himself after the public meeting and made a very public play for the City of Culture "throne", which is gonna bring him a lot of attention, some of it unwanted.

I understand he offered his services free of charge as an interim measure to get the show back on the road.

As to my personal contribution; it's irrelevant. I'm a taxpayer and citizen of Limerick and am free to comment as I see fit on matters of public interest.

True

By the way, the whole "what have you ever done" defence is the rallying cry of every self-obsessed gombeen this country has ever produced. A valid argument it does not make.

As I thought...

mazzy maz

We'll agree to disagree as regards Richie Ryan's motivations. I've no doubt he's a lovely chap and even if my more cynical take on things were closer to the truth than yours, it wouldn't bear much relevance on the material issues at hand i.e. the roles of the Department, Cox and the board; and the circumstances surrounding Patricia Ryan's appointment. That said, I'd be sceptical as to whether anyone who has actually taken the time to listen to what Richie has said publicly since new year's eve would find your take on things more credible than mine (Sorry, had to get that last bit in there haha).

But as you say, Richie played a pivotal role in the public facing down Cox and co. and for that he should be applauded. Will probably be the only event of City of Culture that anyone will remember in ten years.

jbkenn

mazzy maz wrote: »

We'll agree to disagree

Agreed

But as you say, Richie played a pivotal role in the public facing down Cox and co. and for that he should be applauded. Will probably be the only event of City of Culture that anyone will remember in ten years.

I genuinely hope the event becomes a massive success and its success overshadows its shaky start

myshirt

There is a lot being said about the impact of the curse of St. Munchin on this whole thing.

More and more it is appearing undeniable. Either that, or very strange coincidence.

Johnny_BravoIII

Richie Ryan has called another public meeting for tonight 7pm:

"Suggested Agenda: Meeting Friday 10th January 2014
What is the perception of Limerick City of Culture at this time?
1. Is city of Culture sufficiently Transparent and Accountable?
2. Do we need a PUBLIC Pillar?
3. Are we happy with the Interim solution as decided by the Board?
4. Is the current published 'Programme' all inclusive?
5. Any Other Business?"

What is to be achieved by further public meetings of this nature?
1. It seems the correct personnel are now in place with the appointment of Mike Fitz.
2. What's a public Pilar?
3. It seems to me that everybody regards Mike Fitz as the right man for the job.
4. Are we talking about changing the programme?
5. Smells like somebody wants more blood beginning with a public lynching for Pat Cox.

Sure the downside to continued agitation is the continued media stories of a troubled start to the Limerick City of Culture?

IMO it is now time to change/channel this public passion into a "limerick city united in support of COC" movement.

Aidric

This thread is getting juicy with the opposing vested interests.

Poxyshamrock

“At the end of the day, it’s not going to make any difference to the ordinary people of the street because 75% of people are uncultured anyway, and the only time they develop some sort of interest in it is if their sons or daughters or grandchildren are involved in some event”.

John Shinnors, Limerick artist.


I think he's dead right!

Satriale

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

“At the end of the day, it’s not going to make any difference to the ordinary people of the street because 75% of people are uncultured anyway, and the only time they develop some sort of interest in it is if their sons or daughters or grandchildren are involved in some event”.

John Shinnors, Limerick artist.


I think he's dead right!

I suppose many of them dont have time to be cultured when they are out breaking their @rses paying taxes to keep artists in paint and paper...

vkid

Aidric wrote: »

This thread is getting juicy with the opposing vested interests.

Its pretty pathetic all told. A load of wannabe big fish fighting in a very very small pond. I still maintain for the good of the City of Culture it should be someone from outside Limerick that should be appointed as artistic director, it might stop the locals bickering. Someone from outside Ireland would be even better.

Its no wonder people are annoyed having to fund this fiasco from their taxes.

johnmolloy554

vkid wrote: »

Its pretty pathetic all told. A load of wannabe big fish fighting in a very very small pond. I still maintain for the good of the City of Culture it should be someone from outside Limerick that should be appointed as artistic director, it might stop the locals bickering. Someone from outside Ireland would be even better.

Its no wonder people are annoyed having to fund this fiasco from their taxes.

So we need to find the Matthew Elderfield of the Artistic & Cultural world? You need someone who can do both jobs. i.e creativity combined with a decent business and organisational brain. For me, it should have been someone with a proven track record in organising Galway Arts or Dublin Fringe etc etc. I hope the new guy, Mike Fitzpatrick, can do all the above.

That other guy, Ryan seems like a trouble maker

johnmolloy554

vkid wrote: »

Its no wonder people are annoyed having to fund this fiasco from their taxes.

If it wasn't spent in Limerick now it would have disappeared into a black hole and have been used for a Westport Arts or St Patricks Weekend in Dublin.

We have it, it will be spent and if 1/3 of the activity of this year is repeated every other year, that's putting Limerick on a good footing.

vkid

johnmolloy554 wrote: »

If it wasn't spent in Limerick now it would have disappeared into a black hole and have been used for a Westport Arts or St Patricks Weekend in Dublin.

We have it, it will be spent and if 1/3 of the activity of this year is repeated every other year, that's putting Limerick on a good footing.

I can't comment on the people involved to be honest as like most people I've never heard of them or their respective roles/companies. I think the antics of all involved, both politicians and the "artistic community", have been fairly pathetic from what I've seen and read.

As for "we have it and it will be spent"....thats a shocking attitude to the use of public finds to be honest...especially in Limerick. I'd prefer to see it going into remodelling O'Connel Street or the Opera centre site rather than being p!ssed away on things like a unique and unforgettable tribute to European silent films, or the programme on Renaissance Rome..to name but two from a pretty weak list of events on the COC website. I can't see these type of events being a) hugely successful, or b) being repeated...and I cannot see what these type of events will add to Limericks culture or its reputation for same.

John Shinnors quote is fairly bang on, but I'd probably go higher on the % of people who don't give a crap about this so called culture. However I do find his use of "uncultured" pretty offensive. As I said previously, a citys culture is made up of more than just art.

The real culture of Limerick seems to me to be remarkably different to what is on offer for this entire year and as it stands it seems like a complete waste of six million euros in a city that has a lot more problems than its culture or keeping its artistic community happy.

johnmolloy554

vkid wrote: »

As for "we have it and it will be spent"....thats a shocking attitude to the use of public finds to be honest...especially in Limerick. I'd prefer to see it going into remodelling O'Connel Street or the Opera centre site rather than being p!ssed away on things like a unique and unforgettable tribute to European silent films, or the programme on Renaissance Rome..to name but two from a pretty weak list of events on the COC website.

You don't understand my post. The €6M has come from the Dept of Arts Heritage & Gaeltacht. If the City of Culture was not to take place in Limerick this year and it will be on going in other Irish cities every 2 years, then the Dept would have allocated these funds elsewhere in Ireland for Arts, Heritage etc.

Saying it should be used on the Opera Centre is "shocking" (yours words not mine) as the City wouldn't have been able to receive these funds from that particular Dept.

vkid

johnmolloy554 wrote: »

You don't understand my post. The €6M has come from the Dept of Arts Heritage & Gaeltacht. If the City of Culture was not to take place in Limerick this year and it will be on going in other Irish cities every 2 years, then the Dept would have allocated these funds elsewhere in Ireland for Arts, Heritage etc.

Saying it should be used on the Opera Centre is "shocking" (yours words not mine) as the City wouldn't have been able to receive these funds from that particular Dept.

As it is being spent currently, i think it is a complete waste of tax payers money and would prefer to see it diverted into something actually beneficial to the city, like the Opera Centre site. If the city is to get money from the tax payer at all, i'd prefer it used for the city centre which is a kip, where it comes from is moot to the point really.