Ireland's First Cinemas

Joyce's Cinematograph Volta and Beyond

Ireland’s most famous early picture house, the Cinematograph Volta was founded by not-yet-famous James Joyce in 1909, but it is not, as many have claimed, Dublin’s - or even Ireland’s - first cinema. It does, nevertheless, have a fascinating history. Joyce persuaded a group of Triestine businessmen who ran a number of cinemas in Trieste and Bucharest to open a cinema in Dublin, dangling before them the prospect of a city of over 300,000 people with no cinema. Setting out from Trieste in October 1909, Joyce led the delegation that leased a former warehouse at 45 Mary Street, fitting it up as a cinema and hired staff for opening on 20 December 1909. Joyce remained at the Volta for just two weeks after the opening before he returned, as arranged, to his family in Trieste. In his absence - and possibly even if he had stayed - the Volta foundered. At least part of the problem was that it showed mostly French and Italian films coming from the cinemas in Trieste and Bucharest, and these films had intertitles in Italian. In June 1910, six months after it had opened, Joyce’s partners sold the Volta to Provincial Cinematograph Theatre, which also ran the Picture House, Sackville Street.

Post-Joyce

The premises continued to act as a cinema until the 1940s. Provincial sold it