Londonderry's year as UK City of Culture has been a triumph, but will gains be frittered away through lack of vision and ambition, asks Charlotte Higgins.
Feargal Murray, musician and Derry man, was back in his home city to perform The Rape of Lucrece with singer Camille O'Sullivan at the weekend – the first time a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company had been seen there for over 20 years.
The show was at the Waterside Theatre, in a Protestant area of the largely Catholic city; afterwards he and his family went out for a few drinks with O'Sullivan, keeping to one side of the bar while a group of loyalists drank noisily at the other.
The next morning he pointed over the river Foyle, across the Peace Bridge towards the former Ebrington British army barracks – now festooned with signs welcoming visitors to the Turner prize exhibition, which opens . "Look at that," he said, almost incredulous at the transformation. "Art wins out in the end. What a story!"
Derry-Londonderry's year as UK City of Culture has been, it is almost universally agreed, a triumph. The Royal Ballet and London Symphony Orchestra have visited; in June 38,000 people lined the banks of the Foyle for a spectacular pageant, devised by Frank Cottrell Boyce, about the city's saint, Colmcille (or Columba) – who brought Christianity to Iona).
Derry council's arts officer Brendan McMenamin cites an even simpler personal highlight of the year: the fact that his 17-year-old son sat out in the park with other teenagers in the sunshine this summer – something that would have been unthinkable when he was growing up in the shadow of the Troubles, when gatherings in the streets meant only riots. "The young people have repossessed the city," he said.
But now fears are growing that these gains risk being frittered away through lack of vision and ambition. Symbolic of this for many is the fact that the £2.5m galleries created for the Turner prize – high-spec, museum-quality spaces converted from barracks that will see 8,000 pre-booked schoolchildren and some 100,000 adults come through the doors over the next four months – will revert to the offices of a digital hub after the show has closed.
Feargal Murray, musician and Derry man, was back in his home city to perform The Rape of Lucrece with singer Camille O'Sullivan at the weekend – the first time a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company had been seen there for over 20 years.
The show was at the Waterside Theatre, in a Protestant area of the largely Catholic city; afterwards he and his family went out for a few drinks with O'Sullivan, keeping to one side of the bar while a group of loyalists drank noisily at the other.
The next morning he pointed over the river Foyle, across the Peace Bridge towards the former Ebrington British army barracks – now festooned with signs welcoming visitors to the Turner prize exhibition, which opens . "Look at that," he said, almost incredulous at the transformation. "Art wins out in the end. What a story!"
Derry-Londonderry's year as UK City of Culture has been, it is almost universally agreed, a triumph. The Royal Ballet and London Symphony Orchestra have visited; in June 38,000 people lined the banks of the Foyle for a spectacular pageant, devised by Frank Cottrell Boyce, about the city's saint, Colmcille (or Columba) – who brought Christianity to Iona).
Derry council's arts officer Brendan McMenamin cites an even simpler personal highlight of the year: the fact that his 17-year-old son sat out in the park with other teenagers in the sunshine this summer – something that would have been unthinkable when he was growing up in the shadow of the Troubles, when gatherings in the streets meant only riots. "The young people have repossessed the city," he said.
But now fears are growing that these gains risk being frittered away through lack of vision and ambition. Symbolic of this for many is the fact that the £2.5m galleries created for the Turner prize – high-spec, museum-quality spaces converted from barracks that will see 8,000 pre-booked schoolchildren and some 100,000 adults come through the doors over the next four months – will revert to the offices of a digital hub after the show has closed.