TWO questions seemed to be on everyone's lips when Minister for the Environment, Brendan Howlin, opened the new visitors centre in the Custom House on Wednesday: Who would have thought that the interior would be so intact after being burned in 1921? Secondly: Just how did they make the fire look so realistic in Neil Jordan's Michael Collins?
The crowd was probably more qualified than most to answer the first question if not the second as it included David Slattery of the Heritage Council; Brendan O'Donoghue, secretary of the Department of the Environment; Temple Bar Property's Laura Magahy and Minister of State for the Environment,
McManus. The best source of all, however, for both fact and anecdote about the Custom House, would have been the architectural historian Maurice Craig, who was there with his wife, singer Agnes Bernelle.
