Ireland's First Cinemas

Dublin's First Cinema

A lapse in the Queen’s Royal Theatre’s patent in 1908 allowed the premises on what was then Great Brunswick Street to house Dublin’s and Ireland’s first full-time year-round film venue. The building was hired by the Colonial Picture Combine, which had been touring through Britain and Ireland with its headline act, the Australian proto-feature The Story of the Kelly Gang (Tait, 1906). They spent Christmas week 1907 at the Alhambra in Sandgate, and when they arrived at the Queen’s, they no doubt planned a short stay, such as they had at Belfast’s Ulster Hall from 13-25 April 1908. Finding the venue available and the audiences enthusiastic, however, they stayed in Dublin for nearly a year, from 2 March 1908 to 9 January 1909.

Audience at the People’s Popular Picture Palace

Architect and inveterate theatregoer Joseph Holloway visited what was advertised as the “People’s Popular Picture Palace” on its opening night and offered a fascinating account in his diary: “As I am always interested in all matters appertaining to the stage in Dublin I went down to sample the first evening shows, & found the entrances to the cheaper parts of the house thronged with small boys eager to gain admittance – The Story of the Kelly Gang evidently was the attraction to these youthful minds who [seek] full of the horrors of the “penny dreadful,” & who longed to see some of them realised before their eyes in “living pictures.” The excitement in the street outside was fully maintained inside (I got standing room on the upper circle for 6d). The house was thronged in every part, & a series of pictures depicting the humours and excitement of a man’s first row on the river. This was followed by “the sorrows of a clown” & “Her rival’s necklace” – two dramatic shows. Mr. Alan Wright sang “The Boy on the Raft,” to a series of pictures & then a three minute interval occurred, & the lights put up. Smoking was freely indulged in & the whole house was agog with excitement. The event of the programme – “The Story of the Kelly Gang” was then announced amid “sensation,” as they say in a murder trial, & the story was dramatically and excitingly unfolding itself amid noisy approval as I left a little after eight o’clock. The street outside was a hive of childhood & from every quarter crowds swarmed to swell the number, long queues were already formed awaiting entrance for the 9 o’clock show.–All this goes to prove that crude melodrama even in “living pictures” is what appeals to the youthful mind ever eager for thrilling events.”