THE ARTS: DesignYard was meant to be a flagship for Irish design. But it has gone bust. Does that mean it was just another bad idea, asks Aidan Dunne

All too appropriately, the title of the current exhibition at the National Photographic Archive, in Temple Bar, is writ large across the gallery's wall: Notice To Quit. For it looks, on the face of it, as if the places that justify Temple Bar's cultural-quarter tag are facing an increasing rate of attrition.

Last year, after a brief and troubled history, it was the turn of Arthouse, on Curved Street, to close its doors. Dublin's Viking Adventure, in SS Michael & John's Church, also closed. It offered a cultural theme-park experience; more worryingly, Arthouse was the component in Temple Bar's cultural make-up that focused on the brave new technologies of the emergent Ireland.

Now, this summer, DesignYard, intended to provide a showcase for the best in contemporary Irish design, has gone by the board. And another venue, a private, commercial gallery called Artselect, next to the Gallery of Photography, has just closed down. That the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, based across the river on Great Strand Street but long located in and associated with Temple Bar, has also closed makes it all sound distinctly ominous. But appearances can be deceptive.

Kavanagh says his gallery will reopen elsewhere. Artselect tried a bold new approach to the commercial-gallery format, with brash, upfront displays and an informative style of presentation designed to attract those unfamiliar with the art world. Unfortunately, the gallery probably arrived on the scene a few years too late, when the tide had turned and the kind of customer it was targeting was becoming more cautious about spending.

Although other cultural residents of Temple Bar, including Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, are facing tougher times, having to cope with funding cuts and other symptoms of a changed economic climate, they are doing so with apparent effectiveness.

Since reopening, Project arts centre has had a bumpy ride, with criticisms directed at the new building and with Kathy McArdle's brief, acrimonious spell as director. But it has settled down, and Project's visual-arts department, which was the centre of a bitter dispute between McArdle and Valerie Connor, her curator, has found a distinctive identity under the guidance of its new curator, Grant Watson. The Ark children's cultural centre, meanwhile, has been identified as a potential tenant for the vacated Arthouse building.

But the loss of DesignYard is a blow to Temple Bar. At the beginning of May, staff at its jewellery gallery were asked to make exceptional efforts to increase turnover during the month. The results were dramatic, and the jewellery gallery reportedly had its best monthly sales. The initiative was, alas, too little, too late.

Early in June, staff were summoned to a meeting at noon and told that they had an hour to vacate the building, that DesignYard was bankrupt. Staff apparently had no idea they were in the midst of a crisis.

The liquidator's estimate puts the organisation's deficit at about €230,000, a large proportion of it owed to the Revenue Commissioners. The list of unsecured creditors is long, however, and it includes something like 150 makers, who have not been paid for the sales made during May. Many of them are understandably angry, the more so because they had reluctantly agreed to DesignYard's terms of supply.

The jewellery gallery followed a commercial model, that of Electrum in London. Most of the 150 or so jewellers whose work was for sale in DesignYard had accepted what one described as tough conditions to be there. They provided work on a sale-or-return basis, with an agreed 100 per cent mark-up, plus VAT. But several makers say some other stock in the gallery was bought outright, including jewellery from the German firm Niessing.

In the immediate aftermath of DesignYard's demise, several makers expressed their dissatisfaction with the role of the Crafts Council of Ireland. A question from Brendan Howlin in the Dáil implied that the council had effectively pulled the plug on DesignYard by not renewing its annual funding arrangement.

In the five years after its foundation, the council had indeed given DesignYard €330,000. The funding went down after the first two years, when €165,000 had been paid, on the assumption that DesignYard would gradually become viable. The agreement concluded at the end of 2002.

Any further funding was to be by agreement. DesignYard requested €50,000 a year over the next five years and a one-off injection of €350,000 from the Government, for marketing. Effectively, that injection would also had to have come from the council budget, which had itself, unsurprisingly, been cut this year. The council decided against further funding.

The decision followed an Enterprise Ireland-financed report on DesignYard by Indecon, Ireland's largest economics consultancy, which was delivered in November last year. There were three distinct strands to DesignYard's activities: the jewellery gallery, the design gallery and the commissioning gallery. The report pointed out that all three were increasingly addressed by the retail sector.

In response to criticism of its decision, the Crafts Council of Ireland cited a number of factors for its stance. Several of them could be summarised as a basic perception that DesignYard had not adjusted to changes in the marketplace, including the arrival of two commercial craft galleries, the Bridge and Whichcraft, nearby. There have also been other developments in retail design outlets in the wider Dublin context.

The council also argued that DesignYard did not propose to address its building, whose frontage in particular was perceived as being user-unfriendly. The building, whose body is set back from an elaborate facade, does not advertise itself to the passer-by - a significant drawback for a retail gallery.

Whatever the relative merits of these arguments, the underlying fact is that the continuation of DesignYard would have demanded a fundamental rethink - and, from the outside looking in, it seems the energy just wasn't there to do that.

Certainly, viewed in relation to turnover and the size of the deficit, continued funding by the Crafts Council of Ireland would not have been enough to guarantee viability, and apart from more aggressive marketing other strategic and practical decisions needed to be made.

Despite its brief life, it would be unfair to dismiss DesignYard as a failure and unfortunate if its real achievements were eclipsed by recriminations about its closure.

It was a brave, imaginative experiment and attracted an impressive level of talent and commitment in every aspect of its activities, from board members to staff to makers. It was highly significant in the development of Irish design standards.

Of its three strands, the most commercially successful, and perhaps the most lamented, is the jewellery gallery, which certainly raised the profile of designer jewellery in Dublin. Les Reed of the crafts council agrees. "The jewellery gallery was among the top three or four in Europe," he says. "It was so successful that it would definitely be a viable project, especially as one of the cultural units within Temple Bar."

Several observers wondered why DesignYard didn't scale down and focus its activities in this area. Neither the board nor the Indecon report proposed such a move. One obvious problem would have been uncoupling the jewellery gallery from the organisation's overall deficit. And it would have meant abnegating responsibility for the more speculative, innovative side of DesignYard's brief.

Yet most interested parties agree that there now is an opening for a designer jewellery gallery in Dublin - an opening partly generated by DesignYard itself.

The question - and for dozens of makers it is an urgent question - is whether anyone is going to rise to the challenge.