A member of the board of the Abbey Theatre has made a €500,000 donation towards its centenary celebrations, although the money is not expected to stave off impending redundancies at the theatre.
The chairman of the Abbey's centenary fundraising sub-committee, Mr John McColgan, has confirmed that a €500,000 donation to the fund has been received from the Irish-American philanthropists, Mr Lewis and Ms Loretta Brennan Glucksman.
This raises the total income of the fundraising committee to €3.1 million. The donation reduces a shortfall in centenary funds to €300,000 and lowers the end-of-year deficit faced by the theatre to €2 million.
Ms Glucksman, chairwoman of the American Ireland Fund, is a member both of the board of directors of the Abbey Theatre and of the centenary sub-committee. In 2002, the American Ireland Fund contributed almost €299,000 to the building development project of the Gate Theatre. Mr Glucksman is a prominent New York stockbroker who has invested heavily in a major gallery bearing his name which is due to open in University College, Cork, next month.
Earlier this year, the couple made a donation of over €167,000 to the Abbey's fundraising initiative. The other private donors included Mr McColgan and his wife Ms Moya Doherty, who contributed €400,000; the financier Mr Dermot Desmond and businessman Mr Denis O'Brien, who donated €200,000 each; and the developer Mr Bernard McNamara, who gave €100,000. Financiers Mr Denis Desmond and Mr Maurice Cassidy gave sums of between €25,000 and €30,000 each. Some €20,000 and €10,000 came from Today FM and Bord Gáis respectively, while the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism allocated €1 million for the fund.
This was supplemented by €481,000 in special grants for the centenary year from the Arts Council, the National Lottery, the Heritage Council, the Department of Education and Science, and Anglo Irish Bank.
Speaking yesterday to The Irish Times, Mr McColgan described the Glucksman donation as "uplifting and very generous". He said that while the donation had been promised by the Glucksmans for "a couple of months", it finally came through last week.
The donation had not, he said, "directly" been precipitated by the revelations in recent weeks of deepening crisis at the Abbey. Along with its €2 million deficit, the theatre faces falling box office figures and a restructuring plan which entails the loss of 30 of its 91 contract and permanent staff.
Mr McColgan said yesterday that the centenary committee was "hopeful" of receiving additional donations to bring its income to the €3.4 million target by the end of the year.