{"id":237329,"date":"2026-01-10T05:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T05:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/237329\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T05:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T05:41:11","slug":"corks-refurbished-crawford-art-gallery-to-reopen-in-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/237329\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork&#8217;s refurbished Crawford Art Gallery to reopen in 2028"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is unlikely that the Crawford Art Gallery, which closed for renovation last September, will reopen before Christmas 2028,  The Echo has been told.<\/p>\n<p>The extensive refurbishment works, which come with a \u20ac93m price-tag, more than treble that of the initial \u20ac29m 2020 estimate, commenced this month and have been given a 123-week time frame for completion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">That would mean the work would likely be completed by mid-April, 2028. The gallery\u2019s director, Mary McCarthy, said a months-long process of fit-out, commissioning and reoccupation of the gallery would then follow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">She said it was her intention that the gallery would re-open before Christmas 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">\n            \u201cIt took us a year to get out, but we hope we can come back in a more phased basis to bring the collection back into the building, and to put it back on the walls, and to get the caf\u00e9 and the visitors\u2019 services open, it really will depend on the hand-over of the building and that process,\u201d Ms McCarthy said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">She said the gallery would endeavour to keep the process of restocking as brief as possible, and expected to be able to offer a firm update during the first half of this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cWe will definitely do our absolute best to open within the calendar year of 2028. It is our intention to get this service back open for the people of Cork and the city centre as soon as possible,\u201d Ms McCarthy said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The refurbishment, which is being carried out for the Office of Public Works (OPW) by contractor PJ Hegarty and Sons, will encompass a five-story extension and a new restaurant, and will give the gallery an additional 50% in exhibition and storage space for its 3,500-item collection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Budgeted\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In November, arts minister Patrick O\u2019Donovan said the work is now budgeted at \u20ac93.1m, a figure which includes Vat and a provision for contingency. As of November, he said, \u20ac6.5m had already been spent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Mr O\u2019Donovan said the original estimate, in 2020, had been made prior to the planning and design phase, and the project has changed substantially since then. There had also been, he said, considerable construction inflation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In December, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said the project was \u201cof a different scale from what originally conceived\u201d, describing it as \u201cmuch more exciting\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">First built in 1724 as a custom house, the Crawford has in the past operated as a school of art, a municipal art gallery, and a national cultural institution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The Crawford also served, from 1892, as Cork\u2019s first public reading room, recording in its first year as many as 500 visitors a day. The following year it offered Cork its first lending library service, hosting Ireland\u2019s first library collection of children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The library service moved in 1905 to a purpose-built Carnegie Library on Anglesea St. This would be burnt to the ground by British forces during the 1920 Burning of Cork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is unlikely that the Crawford Art Gallery, which closed for renovation last September, will reopen before Christmas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[81388,307,304,305,306,79,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-237329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-crawford-art-gallery","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-cork-news","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}