Tradition betrayed by poor governance By Michael Smith Founded in 1823 in Dublin, the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) was born from the ambition of 30 Irish artists who petitioned the Crown for a charter of incorporation. Early leaders were landscape painter William Ashford and architect Francis Johnston. By the end of the 19th century, the RHA stood as Ireland’s pre-eminent institution for promoting visual art. Over time, the Academy gained a reputation for conservatism, particularly in the early Free State years when it embraced a nationalist realism. It was in reaction to this that the Irish Exhibition of Living Art emerged in 1943 to champion modernism. The RHA’s original premises on Abbey St burnt in 1916 and it demolished its splendid replacement headquarters on Ely Place in the 1960s. A utilitarian new space was created there in the 1970s with financing from developer Matt Gallagher and a final design by Arthur Gibney RHA, friend of Charlie Haughey. Finally, after years of debt stress, in 2009 that space was upgraded to meet the RHA’s royal aspirations, and to include a well-regarded School. It would be difficult to say it has made for an institution that is integral to the cultural life of Ireland. The RHA is helmed for the moment by Abigail O’Brien, its first female President who was recognised with an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts in 2019, and was the recipient of a “Woman of the Year” award in the Arts from Irish Tatler; and by Patrick T Murphy, who remembers breaking into the gallery in the early 1980s when the building was a concrete hulk “just to look at the spaces inside because they were so great”. who has served as Director for 28 years. Murphy spent the early part of his career lecturing in the National College of Art and Design, returning to Dublin in 1998 after a decade at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and has long been due to retire in the autumn. O’Brien, whose brother is one of Ireland’s richest men, Denis O’Brien, has announced she will go around the same time. This article explains how relationships between these senior officers and the RHA’s board have collapsed as the protagonists make for the departure lounge. How it is supposed to work, and how it works in practice The Academy is a charity that receives core Arts Council funding and operates under a spiffy Royal Charter which was expensively rewritten a few years ago “for effect” but, according to insiders, without taking aim at deep structural problems. Formally, the Assembly — comprising the membership — meets four times a year and retains ultimate authority. In practice, the Council, meeting monthly with roughly 8–10 members (several have resigned in recent weeks), functions as the board under company law. The President, Treasurer, Secretary and Keeper sit on Council ex officio, as its officers. They are Dr Abigail O’Brien PRHA, Andrew Folan RHA, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh RHA and Rachel Joynt RHA respectively. Without RHA after your name you will not go far in this berobed world. Several Council members and officers are now complaining that short tenures, blurred lines of accountability and a culture of informality have crystallised as dysfunction and stasis. Staff report no clear whistleblower route. Fundamental norms of good governance such as care with employment contracts, disciplinary processes and officers not employing staff, have not always been observed. The officers are not always responsive to their Council. There is inadequate guidance from the antique RHA’s bye-laws. Concentrated power The RHA now features an unusually concentrated executive: Patrick Murphy is not only CEO/Director but also in effect Curator which gives him leverage over the RHA’s ever-aspiring artist membership. Admirers describe him as dynamic and artist-focused, with teaching experience and a reputation for ‘looking after’ the staff of roughly twelve. Critics characterise him as a poor manager with lax procurement and informal hiring (“jobs for friends”) practices, and a demonstrated partial aversion to paperwork — he has himself, it is said, no standard employment contract, though he will have inferred rights by law, and little systematic expense oversight. He draws a notable salary of around €120,000. He refused to inform one stakeholder of the salaries of the employees of the RHA as he said he was taking care of that himself. He has grown arrogant and territorial over the years. Artists and employees alike are reluctant to challenge such a powerful CEO. Murphy’s long-standing alliance with President O’Brien figures frequently in dispatches. Sources say O’Brien has taken a leading hand in discussions about Murphy’s retirement package and a mooted “RHA West” role in Ballina, proposals some Council members considered to make insufficient logistical sense. Enter Sandra Hu Into this culture stepped Sandra Hu, who “sashayed” into the organisation via training in Beijing, New York, Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Trinity College Dublin as ‘front-of-house’ without job advertisement or interview like many before her. Her title and responsibilities shifted — part-time at front-of-house, then — with the benefit of contracts — development co-ordinator, front of house manager and head of sales to front of house manager and head of commerce. Through no fault of Hu’s, these roles sometimes overlapped with roles held by others, including the poor official Curator, whose job responsibility included sales. In a short period and without elementary process, Hu was catapulted from an entry level position to a prominent position with far-reaching responsibilities which, by all accounts, she discharged well. She was charismatic, ebullient and gregarious and she generated a stir and perhaps some jealousy. Colleagues describe her as efficient and hardworking, but increasingly critical of slippage in standards such as some RHA staff’s notoriously deficient starting hours. Hu felt she was not being rewarded for working overtime. She was pointedly excluded from several meetings and sidelined socially. There was an incident where Murphy publicly castigated Hu for bringing coffees to a Council meeting centring on whether O’Brien had paid for them as President. One curator formerly
