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 of the National Gallery is said to have left after a period of frustration. Informal complaints went to Murphy for up to a year though nothing official was lodged.
The RHA nominates members to the board of the National Gallery to which the Curator wished to return; and O’Brien sits on both boards.
Hu’s supporters claim a remarkable 40-80% uplift in annual exhibition sales during her tenure. Murphy seemed reluctant to accept her sales and development talents, including a partnership which she and her family facilitated in China, though O’Brien was supportive.
Hu cultivated extensive networks — she is herself on first-name terms with donors and collectors — and she for a while became close to O’Brien, who she later helped in China-related sales of O’Brien’s sculptures.
The China trip
In April 2024, Hu who is extremely well-connected in China, solely organised an ambitious trip to Beijing for the RHA’s leadership: meetings with state academies and private museums, introductions to collectors, and a reception at the Irish Ambassador’s residence. Access to the Palace Museum and other high-level engagements were arranged by Hu’s family. O’Brien got a nice interview on Chinese TV. According to accounts, O’Brien self-funded travel for herself and her husband, as did Hu; Murphy travelled on RHA time and unclear funding — with O’Brien falsely claiming the trip was “private”.
Controversy followed.
Internally, O’Brien downplayed the official character of the trip; publicly, she suggested it was private though that distinction was blurred by the RHA funding of Murphy’s participation. When the Council learned of the visit afterwards, Murphy reportedly said he did not need Council approval. Expense-monitoring, already loose, drew renewed criticism. Hu, meanwhile, says she was told via O’Brien’s husband when they were all in China, that Murphy would “look after” her Irish work permit, which required a salary increase.
Murphy convened officers of the Council to recommend granting the €6,000 that Hu sought in order to meet the visa requirements. The raise was not agreed, but an anomalous tenure concession was.
It was claimed that it was inappropriate for O’Brien to be involved in these discussions as not only was she a friend and travelling companion of Hu but she had also used Hu to sell her sculptures in China. The extent to which Hu and O’Brien de-friended is unclear. Village was shown documentation revealing a Hong Kong buyer looked for a refund for work she had purchased via Hu from O’Brien, suggesting they remained in contact. She certainly blocked her on Instagram. Indeed she has deactivated her account. The RHA Council later debated the possibility that O’Brien refund the buyer in full, though that has not yet happened.
Hu told a colleague she had recorded a staff meeting but when confronted said it was a bluff. She received an official warning letter about this loaded up with largely redundant ballast about invoice practices and lunchtime cover.
She sent an eight-page document to O’Brien who improperly forwarded it to Murphy, detailing alleged failures in the organisation including several involving him. She has retained some damaging documentation including a Garda note, after an incident where a visitor attempted to steal an artwork, noting that despite recommendations there was no functioning CCTV in the RHA which has housed art worth over €2.5m.
Complaint, suspension, and an unsettling settlement
Hu sought intervention from the Council, as permitted in her contract, and filed a formal complaint alleging “persistent inappropriate conduct” by Murphy.
O’Brien ignored Hu’s contractual permission to ask for Council to address her grievance and O’Brien decided to employ a mediator. Hu complained that the mediator was appointed without consultation and without her approval.
When that mediation process collapsed, Hu was suspended, illegally she claims, on 3 December 2024.
Hu retained an experienced legal team. The RHA sought a formal legal severance-mediation process.
The problem was that Murphy’s involvement in any decisions relating to Sandra Hu could later be argued by her and her lawyers as biased/retaliation given that she had raised complaints about him. He needed to distance himself from future disciplinary processes that might be initiated against Hu.
O’Brien and Murphy had already decided who would attend on behalf of the RHA. It would be O’Brien and Murphy themselves. They informed their legal team they had a mandate from the Council O’Brien and Hu were friends and had had a commercial relationship which suggested she too was not an ideal representative for the RHA.
A settlement was agreed at around €100,000 – being about a year’s salary and all Sandra Hu’s, and other, legal fees including the expenses of the mediation itself.
RHA bye-laws assert that the ‘Keeper’ is central to staffing matters — the President has no role in these, and these powers cannot be delegated without express Council agreement. The Council — not a single officer — controls current business and staff matters. They state that decisions should be taken at a quorate (six members) Council meeting and key employment actions be ratified by the General Assembly. The decision and ratification have never occurred.
On 24 July, 2025 Hu wrote to one of the key RHA lawyers: “Would you mind confirming in writing when you became aware that Abigail O’Brien lacked the authority — per the RHA’s internal bye-laws, which require a majority vote of Council (as stipulated in the Section ‘The Council’ in the attached document)—to sign the severance agreement dated 17 December 2024?”. Hu was informed by the RHA’s solicitor: “The delegated authority of the Board is not a matter for you”. That is in some ways true — but it most certainly is for the Board, Council and Assembly.
Village can see no reason why the lawyers went along with a process which they had considered to be improper and the decision reached through the process seems vulnerable if members of the Council, or others, insist on asserting their rights. Hu now argues that the agreement is void and unenforceable. If she asserts this it will be legally embarrassing for the RHA. It all left the positions of Murphy and O’Brien notably precarious.
€100,000 is a lot of money for the state-funded institution and will raise official eyebrows in the way a similar settlement with the protagonists at the Abbey Theatre some years ago has.
Meanwhile, Hu’s semi-pseudonymous Instagram account is attracting national and international attention. Her account also features historical photos of Hu, who is now “out of jurisdiction” according to her frequent Instagram updates, attending events with billionaires such as Joe Getty. RHA Director/CEO Patrick Murphy told Village: “The termination of employment of the person you refer to was subject of a legal mediation with settlement terms and any further comment being subject to a co-signed non-disclosure agreement. For our part we shall be honouring and abiding by the terms of that agreement”.
Yet the RHA President’s email mishaps — documents intended for her solicitor but copied to Council members in which she referred to some Council members as “tricky customers” — suggested O’Brien was over-aggressively manoeuvring to defend her position, and rattled the Council. In recent days she signalled she would leave the Presidency of the Academy she appeared to love.
O’Brien and Hu
What’s at stake
Basic governance hygiene — honesty; openness; clear contracts, especially for part-time staff and technicians; competitive hiring; oversight; ethics standards; management of conflicts of interests; expense controls; documented delegations — appear to get inadequate attention in the august RHA in 2025. The ignominious ends of some of the protagonists in this debacle seems rooted not in personal foibles but structural and governance failures, throughout and right at the top of, the Academy. These failures are mirrored in other analogous charities. Government, presumably unexcited by the agenda of NGOs which compete with it for space, seems to have little interest in reform.
At stake are not just reputations but public trust, institutional credibility and taxpayer money, given the Academy’s charitable status and Arts Council funding of one third of the €1.5m annual budget.
Meanwhile what began as a devoted career in the arts has become, for Sandra Hu, a campaign to defend the integrity of an institution she once served. As she continues to publish her documented “receipts” (sometimes through the surreal proxy of a satirical dachshund on Instagram), her case is forcing a reckoning with transparency, governance and accountability in one of Ireland’s oldest cultural bodies.
