Open the Gate
“A problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness in which it occurs.” - Einstein
On October 27th I posted this piece:
“I’ve been thinking about Michael Colgan lately…”
I’ve been reading a lot lately.
I am reading your story. It’s about Abuse of Power in Irish Public Life. It’s not over. It’s my story too.
In the past two weeks, since I published my experience, scores of people have told me of their own experiences of abuses of power in Irish public life at the hands of several different people including sexual harassment, assault, bullying, non consensual touching and violation of their bodily integrity. I am offering support by listening, hearing and believing.
The people writing to me are terrified they won’t be believed.
How did we create a society, where it’s more likely that you will be doubted than believed?
Michael Colgan’s behaviour was an open secret. Why didn’t anyone else do something until now? The stories I heard (and continue to hear) about Michael disturb me. I struggled so much with the cycle of gossip-condemn-accept-incident-gossip-accept-resign-to-do-nothing. This is the complexity of the situation. I didn’t feel I could do anything to change this oppressive situation, until now. I believe that now, the cycle may break. And we as a society can choose to take part in a collective corrective experience.
A corrective experience is being re exposed under favorable circumstances to an emotional situation with which one could not cope in the past. Before #metoo, I couldn’t have posted about Michael. Before #WakingTheFeminists, I couldn’t have confronted Michael in The Oak.
The corrective experience might have negative connotations for some, echoes of school and all that, but it’s like the analogy in knitting, you are knitting and you notice you’ve dropped a stitch, so you go back, unravelling to where it happened and then picking back up and resuming the pattern. The path was always the right path. “We are all born beautiful little babies in prams,” as my dad says.
I believe that to move forward, The Gate Theatre needs a new Board. I have tried to appeal to An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar and Minister Heather Humphries for their support.
In an email from Heather Humphries yesterday - she explains;
“There are legal limits to what the Minister can do in relation to private organisations and organisations that are independently funded by the Arts Council. Due to these legal limits, her focus in these recent announcements is on the wider sector, in the hope that she can facilitate a change in culture.”
Michael sat on his own Board for 15 years. He also sat on the Arts Council, while they were funding The Gate Theatre. He served with members of the current Gate Board for years.
The most notable example is David Bunworth, a current Director of The Gate Theatre, sat on the board with Michael from 2004- 2016, when Colgan stepped down from The Board. The Board met every 4-6 weeks. They met in Michael’s Office in Number 8 Parnell Square East. They walked through the very office environment described in last week’s Irish Times article.
Michael’s abuse of power, through bullying and sexual harassment, was an open secret.
The women I have spoken to who worked in Number 8 believe that members of the Board and senior management were aware of Michael’s behaviour. I believe from talking to them and from what I knew already, that they were too. That is why I am willing to post this blog.
I am writing this post in solidarity with the women who have come forward from Number 8. They had hope after they told their experiences to the Irish Times one week ago, but now they are worried that nothing will change. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that anything fundamental will change.
I believe members of the Board knew, but then so did I. We all knew. It was an open secret.
I don’t want this to become another open secret. Where the nation knows yet nothing changes. Ireland has a problem with open secrets. I think it is time we addressed that. We need a national corrective experience.
I don’t know why board members and senior management did nothing to stop Michael. I know I was terrified to say anything. Maybe they were too. It is clear that he created the conditions where he was feared by many. This enabled him to dominate and control.
Maybe this could be a corrective experience for those that were on the Board during Michael’s tenure. Maybe this is their opportunity to put this right?
I think they need to step aside, and allow others to come in with fresh eyes.
We believe that members of the Board and senior management were aware that Michael was sexually harassing, and bullying members of staff and others. Even if you didn’t know from being on the Board, you would definitely know from being in the Gate bar. You would know he was a bit handsy. A bit gropey. You might not know, under Irish law, that much of that is sexual assault.
The Gate Theatre is an institution, paid for by Irish citizens, through their taxes and the tickets they buy. The Minister has relayed to me that she has no legal power to address the issues with the current Board. Meanwhile the Gate continues to receive €100,000’s of taxpayers money each year…
While this Board is in place, how can we, as citizens, trust that they will deliver a fair, unbiased report on what has happened in The Gate Theatre? How can anyone be expected to engage in this process?
Today, Michael has responded to my blog and to others’ accounts published in the media. Michael believes he is living in a climate where “to be accused is enough to be deemed guilty”. My experience has been consistently referred to in the media as an “allegation.” An allegation is an accusation without proof.
I, and the other women who have spoken out in the open have proof and witnesses and this has been described in our accounts. None of the accounts have used the word “guilty” or in fact the word “innocent”, yet those made nervous by this truth telling, like Michael now, use this language. I believe it is an attempt to imply that only the criminal court can be the arbiter of our experience of abuse of power, of coercion and control, of our sexual experience. And by extension, that we, as women, do not have the right to bare witness to our own experience of the world. This further silences us, and enables others to abuse power at will with no recourse.
Michael has said he was not aware of how his behaviour affected others. I tried to appeal to Michael person to person, in the moment. I told him his behaviour was inappropriate, as did others seated at the table that night. He dismissed me. He didn’t listen and he didn’t apologise. I heard, for the past 15 months, that he had done much worse to others. I know that women who worked for him made him aware of his behaviour also. I am glad he has had some time to think about what he has done, and I think he needs to think a bit more.
However, it’s not appropriate for someone like Michael, accused of Abuse of Power in Irish Public Life to write the verdict on his behaviour in a national newspaper. We need a truly independent, unbiased process that we can trust. I have a lot more I need to say, which cannot be discussed in public.
The system was never broken. It was built this way. We now need to re-build it.
I felt I had nowhere to go with my experience. Michael sat on his own Board. He also sat on the Arts Council Board. He wasn’t a direct employer of mine, yet could wield so much power and influence over my career. I understand that the women he touched believed that the Gardaí wouldn’t take this seriously. Michael created a structure where he was not accountable to anyone. I believed he was friendly with many judges. I was consistently warned, as were others that I would be sued for defamation if I spoke and that he would ruin my life. I spent 15 months believing that and being afraid. The first time I actually spoke to a lawyer I understood that a defence to defamation is, that what you are saying is the truth. I was led to believe that the truth didn’t matter, and the powerful always win.
I now know, that this is not true.
Christine Buckley needed to tell the survivors of institutional child abuse who entered the Aislinn Centre “I believe you before you open your mouth” because they had grown up in a culture which used doubt and the power of God to control and silence its victims. I grew up in the same culture, which replaced the power of God with the power of the Law and money. I was told to stay silent, or Colgan would use the Law and his wealth to ruin my life.
Today, I do not feel afraid of Michael Colgan. I feel believed and trusted by Irish People.
If the Minister cannot do anything, and members of the board have no intention of resigning, what can we as citizens do to restore this institution.
The history of the past 33 years reads like an institution in the closed grip of one man. I think it’s time this institution was reclaimed from his abusive legacy. I don’t know what to do. So I am finishing on this call to action:
If the government won’t help us, how can we, the citizens, Open The Gate?