Petition to name the new Liffey Bridge the 'HUGH LANE BRIDGE'

Signing this petition shows support for my proposal that the new bridge currently under construction across the Liffey River, at Marlborough Street, in Dublin, be named the "Hugh Lane Bridge."

One hundred years ago, Hugh Lane - the Anglo-Irish patron of the arts - offered a collection of prestigous impressionist paintings to the city of Dublin, with one proviso: that Dublin Corporation contribute to the cost of housing them in an appropriate setting.  Plans were drawn up by Sir Edwin Lutyens - who designed the War Memorial Gardens further downriver - for a Venetian Gallery Bridge, to replace the Ha'penny Bridge, in which the collection could be permanently displayed.  Exactly one hundred years ago, in 1913, these plans were scuppered by Sir William Martin Murphy - chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company (forerunner of the present LUAS), owner of Clerys and the Irish Independent, and general arch-villain of the 1913 Lock-Out - who claimed, ironically enough, that as a typical 'Proud Paudeen,' he'd rather see money invested in Dublin's 'reeking slums' than in a couple of funny pictures by foreigners.  Aginst the venom of Yeats and Lady Gregory he held out, and won the day.  The day of the Catholic business magnate had begun.  

Let us mark its catastrophic conclusion by naming the new bridge after a real patron of the arts - and would-be architect of a more enlightened Ireland.  In view of the Ha'penny, site of his dream-bridge and absent ghost of his tribute, I propose a repayment of Hugh Lane's investment in Dublin.  We are often nowadays told we are living in a new Ireland, an Ireland which values and invests in its arts, an Ireland in renaissance.  I should like to see one of our great patrons given his due.

Hughie O'Domhnaill