Category Archives: O’Connell/Sackville Street

Taking a Fearful Joy in Rewitnessing the Civil War on Irish Cinema Screens in July 1922

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Dublin War Scenes (Topical Budget, 1922), available on the IFI Archive Player.

“The pictures are luring the Dublin public,” JHC observed in the Irish Independent‘s “To-Day & Yesterday” column on 12 July 1922. “People are taking ‘a fearful joy’ in re-witnessing the ordeal they passed through… The events of the past fortnight fulfil Lessing’s exacting definition of drama – life with the dull parts left out.” The events JHC was referring to are the Battle of Dublin, the engagement that opened the Irish Civil War. That battle began on 28 June, when National Army troops attacked anti-Treaty IRA forces occupying the Four Courts, using artillery loaned by the British government. The bombardment had the desired effect of forcing the occupiers to surrender on 30 June, but not before the destruction of the Public Records Office. Further IRA units located in the O’Connell Street area continued the battle until 5 July, by which time, they too were surrounded and defeated by the National Army’s superior numbers and fire power. At the end of eight days of fighting, the Four Courts and parts of Upper O’Connell Street were in smouldering ruins, and around 80 people had been killed, approximately 35 of whom were non-combatant city residents (Dorney).

National troops holding back locals as artillery shells the Four Courts in The Battle of the Four Courts (Pathé Gazette, 1922). Available on the IFI Archive Player.

Dubliners had seemed ready to see films of the Civil War by 12 July, but only that week. When the fighting had stopped a week earlier, JHC wasn’t talking about the fearful joy in rewitnessing its events at the cinema. “Times of trial sometimes prompt the craving for amusement,” s/he had argued. “In the beginning of the struggle the picture-houses were well patronised. But yesterday saw them quite forlorn although they offered an up-to-date programme of the ‘battle scenes’ and ‘Four Courts incidents’” (5 Jul.). Which cinemas JHC was referring to is unclear to us now, in part because none of the city-centre cinemas advertised in the early part of that week, and certainly the ones in the O’Connell Street area couldn’t have opened until the shooting stopped and fires were extinguished. Those that had been closed or pressed into other uses were the Sackville at 51 Lower O’Connell Street, the Grand Central at 6-7 Lower O’Connell Street, the Metropole at 35-39 Lower O’Connell Street, La Scala at 4-8 Princes Street, the Pillar at 52 Upper O’Connell Street, the Carlton at 62 Upper O’Connell Street, the Rotunda at 165 Parnell Street and the Corinthian at 4-6 Eden Quay.

Onlookers face down Winetavern Street but keep a safe distance from sniping from the Four Courts across the river in Civil War in Ireland (Topical Budget, 3 Jul. 1922). Available on the IFI Archive Player.

“The last couple of very stirring weeks were not wanting in their effect on cinema houses,” the Freeman’s Journal’s “Cinema Notes” columnist observed on 10 July. “The Metropole was made a Red Cross centre, and La Scala was a point for bombardment by the National troops of their opponents on the opposite side of O’Connell street.” Mentioning the other cinemas in the area, the writer commented that “the entire marvel of the whole thing, from the picture house point of view, is that we still have these places, none or very little the worse for wear, in which to spend our evenings.” The Irish Time‘s “Cinema Notes” writer echoed these thoughts five days later, adding that

the Sackville and the [Grand] Central Cinemas came through the ordeal almost unscathed. The Corinthian Cinema on Eden quay seemed to have been selected as an Irregular sniping post, and its parapet bears traces of bullet marks.

The other picture theatres in the city had, of course, to close their doors while the battle raged, but they are preparing to reopen. It is to be hoped that business will come back to them in increasing volume, and thus in some measure make amends for the slump which has been felt in Dublin and elsewhere during the past few months.

This suggests that even ten days after the fighting ended, some cinemas were not yet reopened.

The Pillar in the bullet-damaged streetscape of Upper O’Connell Street just after the fighting had stopped. Image: Cinema Treasures.

The cinemas had certainly been lucky. “Some special god seemed to have been keeping a friendly eye on them,” this writer thought. But even if they didn’t feature on the lists of destroyed buildings, the cinemas weren’t entirely unscathed. The earliest surviving photograph of the Pillar shows it on the busy streetscape of Upper O’Connell Street just after the fighting stopped, with many pedestrians passing its bullet-damaged canopy, even if its façade seems somehow to have fared better than the buildings around it. “Considering its exposed appearance,” an Evening Herald reporter noted, “the Pillar Picture House escaped fairly well. Only a few bullets penetrated the big glass doors, but in the offices overhead a machine-gun had played for some time and did damage to the interior” (“Awe-Stricken Crowd”). It may be for that internal damage that the Pillar applied for compensation to the city for the figure of £750 (“Dublin’s Bill”). 

Freeman’s Journal 7 Jul. 1922: 2.

The Corinthian was the first of the city-centre cinemas to resume advertising – but not necessarily the first exhibiting films – offering on Friday, 7 July, an old favourite, Mary Pickford in Poor Little Rich Girl (US: Artcraft, 1917). Although they didn’t advertise the fact in the newspapers, other cinemas seem also to have opened that day. “Business as usual was the position of Dublin yesterday outside a comparatively few buildings damaged or wrecked in the area of the late fight,” the Irish Independent reported on 8 July. “Most of the city cinema have resumed business, but the theatres are still closed […] due to the absence of the necessary arrangements with artistes” (“Conditions Back to Normal”).

Dublin cinema ads mentioning newsreel of fighting, Evening Herald 8 Jul. 1922: 2.

If the Corinthian’s first ad didn’t mention newsreel, the following day’s entertainment ads indicated that several city cinemas, including the Corinthian, were already showing or intended showing film of the Battle of Dublin. The Evening Herald’s entertainment columns on 8 July had ads for four cinemas – La Scala, the Corinthian, the Metropole and the Bohemian – all of which mentioned footage of the fighting. The Metropole seems not to have been open on that Saturday but advertised its Monday programme as including The Battle of the Four Courts and Scenes of the Fighting in the City, if the latter was an actual film title. The other three cinemas were open, the Corinthian and Bohemian including The Battle of the Four Courts on that day’s bill and La Scala promising “exclusive pictures of Dublin battles.”

Cinema ads, Evening Telegraph 10 Jul 1922: 2.

What is worth noting here is that the rewitnessing involved a recirculation of newsreels that were a week old. The first newsreels of the conflict had been released the previous Monday, 3 July, when the three major newsreel series – Pathé Gazette, Topical Budget and Gaumont Graphic – all featured items focusing on events at the Four Courts. But as usual, a newsreel issue covered several stories. On 6 July, the Kinematograph Weekly delivered the “Hot News” that

the “Pathé Gazette,” number 890, released on July 3, included realistic pictures of the battle of the Four Courts in Dublin, and some right up to the moment shots of the world’s tennis championships taken from the air, together with pictures of ex-President Taft and the Lord Chancellor receiving honorary degrees at Oxford University.

The Kine Weekly also praised Gaumont’s work, noting that London-based newspapers had used images from the previous week’s newsreel to illustrate stories of fighting in Dublin. “This Monday,” it observed, “the ‘Graphic’ scored again with pictures of the destruction of the Four Courts. The cameraman, J. Silver, actually secured the pictures under fire” (“Gaumont’s Dublin Battle Pictures”).

The usual run of a newsreel issue was three days, so these must have been the ones that JHC had noted on 5 July. On 3 July, the Battle of the Four Courts had itself occurred three to six days previously and the fighting was then on O’Connell Street. On 10 July, therefore this was almost two-week old news. JHC had put a subheading “These Can Wait” in his column dealing with the 3-5 July newsreels. “The public was suffering these attractions first hand,” s/he opined. “Everybody knew that the cinema could hardly improve on the pulsing nowness of the real article. For the moment the Dublin point of view is not, as one might say, bioscopic. Film foot-notes to history will have their vogue – later on.”

Topical Budget’s Civil War in Ireland begins with images of people made homeless by the fighting. Available on the IFI Archive Player.

It took only a week, it seems, for the Dublin point of view to become bioscopic. By the week of 10 July, the city’s cinemagoers had perhaps had enough of the pulsing nowness of the real and were ready for history’s film footnotes. Or that as JHC argued on 12 July, that

thumping realities go best on the screen. The events of the past fortnight fulfil Lessing’s exacting definition of drama – “life with the dull parts left out.”

Of course the moralists are right. It isn’t good for us that our lives should be too picturesque and interesting. Happy the people whose annals are vacant.  

Those who had been on the wrong end of the thumping reality of artillery fire and sniping in the city would no doubt have agreed that it was a good thing that the conflict was now safely contained on the screen, at least for the moment.

The prominence of newsreels in Dublin cinemas in the first half of the week beginning 10 July is largely attributable to J. Gordon Lewis, the  camera operator who became Pathé’s main representative in Ireland after the indigenous newsreel Irish Events wound up at the end of 1920. Despite the skill under fire of operators such as Silver working for other companies and what Ciara Chambers has called Topical Budget’s exceptional “comprehensiveness in its coverage of Irish affairs,” Lewis’s local knowledge  allowed him to successfully time the release of a Pathé compilation newsreel to catch the public mood (Chambers 119). “I have met scarcely one Dublin picture-goer who did not anticipate with interest the cinematographic record of recent events,” the Freeman’s “Cinema Notes” columnist revealed. “And to-day we are getting it in the Pathe Gazette – a big film, made from three series of the Gazette joined into one. It is certainly a marvel of cinema photography; and even more to those who can appreciate the details than to the layman.”

Those in the trade did indeed take notice of Lewis’s work, not least a writer in the Kine Weekly whose account of Lewis’s heroic filming offers details of the film not recorded elsewhere, helping us to reconstruct what he presented on 10-12 July. This writer claims that “last Monday, four numbers of the Pathé Gazette were released in Dublin, giving to the people of the city Mr. Lewis’s record of Dublin’s latest agony.” Although the newspaper ads mention merely battles and fighting, the film also contained other material, beginning with “the last pilgrimage of all the Republican leaders to Wolfe Tone’s grave, with close-ups of each.” This is undoubtedly the film Pilgrims after the Poll, shot on 20 June and prepared for release on 29 June. The writer also mentions material that is more readily identified with the surviving Pathé footage, including close shots of the setting on fire of the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street, troops distributing bread to women and children, smoke-filled streets in which an officer is seen firing between two armoured cars and the bombardment of O’Connell Street’s iconic Hammam Hotel.

“Every aspect of Dublin’s battles have been recorded somehow by Gordon Lewis, Pathe’s intrepid photographer of the Irish portion of the Gazette,” the Freeman writer concluded, “little details in the series Dublin is to see to-day prove their absolute under-fire authenticity.” It was Lewis, it seems, who allowed the city’s cinemagoer a fearful joy in rewitnessing the Battle of Dublin.

References

“Awe-Stricken Crowd: The Damage on the West Side of O’Connell Street.” Evening Herald 6 Jul. 1922: 1.

Chambers, Ciara. Ireland in the Newsreels. Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2012.

“Cinema Notes.” Freeman’s Journal 10 Jul. 1922: 3.

“Cinema Notes.” Irish Times 15 Jul. 1922: 7.

“Conditions Back to Normal: Dublin Enjoys Peace.” Irish Independent 8 Jul. 1922: 6.  

Dorney, John. “Today in Irish History, 28 June 1922, the First Day of the Irish Civil War.” 28 June 2017. The Irish Story <https://www.theirishstory.com/2017/06/28/today-in-irish-history-28-june-1922-the-first-day-of-the-irish-civil-war/#.Yt0wSITMJEZ&gt; . Accessed 24 Jul. 2022.

“Dublin’s Bill: Cost of Recent Destruction: £244,000 Claimed.” Irish Independent 12 Jul. 1922: 5.

“Dublin’s Bill Still Growing: The Havoc of War: Total Exceeds £1,854,000.” Irish Independent 18 Jul 1922: 8.

“Gaumont’s Dublin Battle Pictures.” Kinematograph Weekly 6 Jul. 1922: 67.

“Hot News.” Kinematograph Weekly 6 Jul. 1922: 48.

JHC. “To-Day & Yesterday.” Irish Independent 5 Jul. 1922: 2; 12 Jul. 1922: 4.

“Trade Show Under Fire.” Bioscope 13 Jul. 1922: 27.

Rebuilding Dublin as a Cinematic City for the 1920s

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JAP’s end of year “Irish Notes,” Bioscope 25 Dec. 1919: 97.

Despite an increasingly unstable political situation as the War of Independence intensified, Irish cinema at the end of the 1910s was in a very healthy state, and cinema in Dublin especially was about to change radically as it underwent a post-World War I, post-1916 Rising building boom. Not that cinema did not face criticism from the Irish Vigilance Association and its press supporters in their ongoing campaign against imported popular culture, which the Evening Herald memorably saw as an “invasion of our theatres by the ever-increasing forces of smut-huns whose poison gas has been as great a danger to public morals as machines of war have been to the physical weal of the people” (“Cleanse the Theatres”).  Notwithstanding such campaigns, the exhibition side of the industry looked particularly strong at the end of 1919, and Irish film production also looked promising. In his last “Irish Notes” of the year in the Bioscope, JAP noted two coming productions. “‘Rosaleen Dhu,’” he reported, “is the title of a four-reel film which has been produced by the Celtic Film Company around Bray, Co. Wicklow” (“Irish Notes,” 25 Dec.). He gave more space to the news that

the Film Company of Ireland recently reconstructed as the Irish Film Company [and] has just completed its only 1919 production, a screen version of a story by the famous Irish novelist of the early nineteenth century, William Carleton. The film, “Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn,” was made amidst some of the most picturesque scenery in the vicinity of Dublin, and features Brian MacGowan, who made a big hit as the central figure, “Matt, the Thrasher,” in the company’s super-production, “Knocknagow.” (Ibid.)

Ad for the trade show of In the Days of St Patrick, Irish Independent 27 Jan. 1920: 4.

Beyond the expectations of this substantial production, JAP observed that both the Film Company and Norman Whitten’s General Film Supply, which was also completing a film about St Patrick, were building film studios in the Dublin suburbs. “There is plenty of room for both companies,” he concluded, “and ‘competition is the life of trade.’”

Clontarf Town Hall reopened on 23 December 1919. Dublin Evening Mail 20 Dec. 1919: 2.

To some extent, the reopening on 23 December 1919 of Clontarf Town Hall as a picture theatre epitomizes the development of Dublin film exhibition. The Town Hall had first operated as a cinema in 1913 at the height of the pre-war cinema building boom, and as such, was among the first of the suburban cinemas whose offerings of professionally produced entertainment outside the city made cinema such a phenomenal success in the 1910s. With a substantial resident population and a seaside location that drew people out of the city, the town hall had looked like a good prospect as an entertainment venue throughout the 1910s, but it experienced difficulties that saw it closing and reopening regularly, including in 1916 and 1917. It would change hands again in May 1920, when a Mr O’Connell was named as the proprietor (“Irish Notes,” 13 May). As such, it did not have the stability of the Bohemian Picture Theatre and Phibsboro Picture House in the north-city suburb of Phibsboro and the Princess Cinema and Rathmines Town Hall in the south-city suburb of Rathmines. The Bohemian in particular had overcome the disadvantage of location vis-à-vis city-centre cinemas by attracting patrons to Phibsboro with its musical attractions.

A 1926 Goad Fire Insurance map of the Sackville/O’Connell Street block containing La Scala and the Metropole.

If the 1910s saw the advent and the dominance to a significant degree of the suburban picture house, the turn of the decade to the 1920s would see the city-centre venues spectacularly reassert themselves. Four large cinemas were under construction on key sites in the Sackville/O’Connell Street area that had levelled during the fighting in 1916: La Scala, the Metropole, the Grand Central and the Corinthian. The destroyed block to the south of the GPO, the centre of fighting during the Rising, was about to become the location of two of these cinemas, La Scala and the Metropole. Formerly a hotel at the corner of O’Connell and Princes Streets, the Metropole would become an entertainment venue that included a dance hall, a restaurant and a thousand-seat cinema.

Caricature of Frank Chambers, Irish Limelight Nov.1917: 1.

That seating capacity was dwarfed by La Scala, “Dublin’s new super cinema,” which would occupy a site on Princes Street that had been the premises of the Freeman’s Journal and the print works of the Alex Thom publishing company (“Behind the Screen”). “When completed,” the Irish Limelight observed when the project was first announced in the spring of 1918, “the seating accommodation will exceed that of the Gaiety Theatre, while adjoining the auditorium will be spacious tea and refreshment lounges, modelled on the most up-to-date lines” (ibid.). At this point, the seating accommodation was put at 1,400, but when La Scala opened in August 1920, this figure had more than doubled to 3,200 (“Building News”). La Scala was promoted by a consortium led by Frank Chambers, who had opened the Carlton Cinema in O’Connell Street in December 1915, but who had sold his interest in the Carlton in order to focus on La Scala, with which it would be in competition.

Goad Fire Insurance map of Dublin’s Lower Sackville/O’Connell Street and Eden Quay showing the location and relative sizes of the Grand Central Cinema and the Corinthian Cinema.

But La Scala would have plenty of other competition, both established and new. JAP put it succinctly when reporting on a conversation with another proprietor of a Sackville/O’Connell Street cinema. “Speaking to Alderman Farrell, managing director of the Pillar Picture House, and other Dublin cinemas, the other day,” JAP revealed,

he confirmed the report that he had purchased the site in Sackville Street formerly occupied by the D.B.C. restaurant, which vanished in the flames of the 1916 rebellion. It is a fine site, one of the most central in Dublin. The only trouble is that it is almost directly opposite the two palatial cinemas – the Metropole and the Scala – at present in process of construction, and within a stone’s throw almost of half-a-dozen other houses doing good business. And just round the corner on Eden Quay, the newly-formed Corinthian company are building one of the two picture theatres promised in their prospectuses” (“Irish Notes,” 11 Sep).

Farrell’s new cinema would be called the Grand Central, its name incorporating that of the Grand Cinema, which until its destruction in 1916, had stood next door to the iconic DBC restaurant.

Extract from James T. Jameson’s assessment of the viability of the Corinthian Picture Company. Courtesy of the Architectural Archive of Ireland.

Another key member of the Irish cinema industry was asked to comment on the soundness of the Corinthian Picture Company’s business plan. On 25 August 1919, James T. Jameson wrote a report on the viability of two cinemas that the Corinthian Picture Company intended to build on sites at South Great Georges Street and Eden Quay in central Dublin. As the managing director of the Dublin Kinema Exchange and Mart and Ireland’s most prominent pioneer film exhibitor, Jameson was in a good position to make this assessment. His report was appended to an estimate of the profits of the two cinemas in a document that survives at the Irish Architectural Archive (“Statement”). In it, Jameson approves of the architectural drawing that Thomas McNamara had prepared and of the central locations that the company had secured. With good tram links and plenty of passing trade, the latter would ensure that

there will be no necessity for expensive competitive films, as good ordinary programmes would in my opinion be quite sufficient, neither would there require to be a great deal of advertising, both of which are such a heavy outlay on Picture Houses built in out-of-the-way streets […], and for which big extra attractions and expenses are involved to secure a clientele.

The particular merits of the Eden Quay site were that it “is faced with the inward and outward evening flow of patrons for the Royal Hippodrome and Tivoli Theatres, besides being in the line of persons passing from the North and South sides of the city. The impressive front of this Theatre also cannot be missed and will always be a standing attraction.” Indeed, the company decided to proceed with only this cinema, but it would not open until August 1921, almost exactly two years after Jameson wrote his report.

Although he mentions the possibility of increased revenues if the cinemas could secure Sunday opening, Jameson curiously did not take the growing competition in the Sackville/O’Connell Street area into account. The Recorder had banned Sunday opening for city-centre cinemas except in poor residential areas, and part of the controversy that La Scala would cause related to its attempts to get around this restriction. Suburban cinemas did not have to face the Recorder’s ban, although local clergy enforced Sunday closing in Rathmines. Other objections to the new city-centre cinema boom came from those who feared that cinema was replacing other art forms. “I read your leading article on ‘Music in Dublin,’ in Saturday’s issue, with very great interest,” letter writer “Musicus” commented in the Irish Times at the end of October 1919. “One would have thought that a fine [concert] hall would have been erected in Sackville street, instead of a new picture house, of which we have plenty” (“Music in Dublin”).

JAP was also less impressed than Jameson appeared to be with the re-centralization of cinema. “What puzzles me,” he opined, “is why all the new cinemas are being built in the centre of the city. I know of one or two sites in the outer circle which are simply shrieking to have cinemas built upon them. One district in particular should prove a veritable gold mine for the man who gets there first” (“Irish Notes,” 11 Sep). The unnamed suburb was probably not Clontarf, but it may have been the Liberties, Pembroke or Stoneybatter, where the Manor Street Cinema opened in May 1920.

Areas of Dublin’s suburbs did remain to be exploited by the cinema trade, but what was remarkable as 1919 became 1920 was the way in which parts of the city centre destroyed during the 1916 Rising were not being reconstructed as concert halls, press/publishing facilities or restaurants. They were being rebuilt as part of a cinematic city for the 1920s.

References

“Behind the Screen.” Irish Limelight Apr. 1918: 4.

“Building News.” Irish Builder 14 Aug. 1920: 530.

“Cleanse the Theatres.” Evening Herald 4 Jun. 1919: 2.

“Irish Notes.” Bioscope 11 Sep. 1919: 95; 25 Dec. 1919: 97-98; 13 May 1920: 112.

“Music in Dublin.” Letter. Irish Times 27 Oct. 1919: 6.

“Statement Showing How Estimate of Profits Is Arrived At and Report of Mr. James T. Jameson.” RP.D.147.7, Irish Architectural Archive.

Dublin Wreckage Films, Martial Law and Daylight Saving Time in May 1916

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Dublin's smoking ruins. Image from Come Here to Me.

Dublin’s smoking ruins in May 1916. Image from the blog Come Here to Me.

Smoke still rose from the ruins in Dublin city centre at the start of May 1916, including from those of the Grand Cinema, but the weather was about to quench the remaining embers. “The remark of the elderly Dublin citizen who, gazing out of the window on Saturday morning, exclaimed: ‘There has been insurrection, famine, and fire; now we’re going to have a flood,’ were more or less justified by the state of the weather,” observed the Ulster Herald of the period of 6-8 May. “From the early hours of Friday morning until Sunday, Dublin has been under a never-ceasing deluge of rain, and even the most curiosity stricken of those who are themselves within its borders are deterred from wandering forth on visits of inspection amongst the ruins” (“Rising in Dublin”).

A photograph of the Picture House, Sackville/O’Connell Street taken during the week of 8-13 May. Image from RTÉ Archives on Twitter bit.ly/1bFWG0U

A photograph of the Picture House, Sackville/O’Connell Street taken during the week of 8-13 May. Image from RTÉ Archives on Twitter.

Despite the fact that the city seemed to be under attack from the four horsemen of the apocalypse, some normality was returning by Monday, 8 May. “Two cinema houses have re-opened in O’Connell street up to 6.30 each evening,” the same source reported, “and one of them displays a large poster announcing ‘All Easter Week: ‘The Christian.’”One of the earliest surviving photographs of a Dublin picture house shows that this was the Picture House at 51 Lower Sackville/O’Connell Street, which was remarkably unscathed given that it faced the totally destroyed Grand. Most of the people in the photograph are not interested in The Christian, however, but are – in the Ulster Herald’s terms – stricken by curiosity to see the ruins.

A photograph of Sackville/O’Connell Street in flames. Image from Letters of 1916.

A photograph of Sackville/O’Connell Street in flames. Image from Letters of 1916.

The Rising itself struck some observers as inherently cinematic. “For spectacular purposes nothing I have seen compares with the bombardment late yesterday afternoon of the Irish Republican flag on the cupola of the building nearly a mile from the hotel,” a Lloyd’s News Service journalist reported from his/her hotel room. “Fully fifty shells burst around the cupola before the flag fluttered to the ground. A cinema picture of this side-show would have been worth thousands” (“Dublin Rebellion”).

No cinematographer seems to have captured scenes of the Rising itself that might have satisfied the curiosity of those who could not get to Dublin’s city centre. This is disappointing but hardly surprising given the dangers from fire, bombardment and snipers. Nevertheless, several newsreel films were made of the aftermath of the Rising showing the city in ruins by Pathé News, Gaumont Graphic and Topical Budget. The Irish Independent’s London correspondent noted that “Dublin wreckage films” were being shown in London theatres and picture houses offering a “picture of gaping ruins far more appalling than the London public has been prepared for” and a heartbreaking sight for Dubliners in exile (“Our London Letter”).

The programme at Dublin's Carlton for the week of the 8-13 May included Topical Budget's Dublin in Ruins. Dublin Evening Mail 9 May 1916: 2.

The programme at Dublin’s Carlton for the week of the 8-13 May included Topical Budget’s Dublin in Ruins. Dublin Evening Mail 9 May 1916: 2.

These films were also shown in Dublin itself once the picture houses reopened, which happened mostly in the week of 8-13 May. At this point, martial law restrictions allowed them to open only to 8pm. “The fabric of that historic building, the Rotunda, has happily escaped almost unscathed from the recent ordeal of fire,” the reviewer in the Irish Times noted on 9 May, “and an excellent programme of living pictures was yesterday presented to a succession of large audiences” (“Rotunda Pictures”).  Further down Sackville/O’Connell Street and closer to the centre of the fighting during the Rising, the Carlton also opened on 8 May with “a superb programme, the Topical Budget included ‘Dublin Ruins,’ depicting the desolation of the Irish metropolis consequent upon the insurrection” (“Carlton Cinema”). “Though the Pillar Picture House was well within the fire zone during the recent disturbances,” the Irish Times also noted, “the building has escaped with very minor injuries, and, despite the difficulties of transport, the management were able to re-open yesterday at noon with a very attractive programme” (“Pillar Picture House”). Although business at the Mary Street Picture House was “somewhat hampered by the dislocation of cross-Channel communication,” it offered a programme that included Chaplin’s A Film Johnnie (US: Keystone, 1914) and the Gaumont Graphic with all the latest topical features, and recent events in Dublin” (“Mary Street”).

Boh Dublin Rising DEM 12 May 1916

The Bohemian advertised The Dublin Rising and Ruins of the City with musical accompaniment by Clyde Twelvetrees. Dublin Evening Mail 12 May 1916: 2.

In the second half of that week (11-13 May), the Bohemian exhibited what appears to have been a longer film of the city’s ruins, Dublin Rising and Ruins of the City. Its prominence in advertising suggests that this was not just another newsreel item but something more substantial. The only surviving newsreel film of more than a few minutes is the Imperial War Museum’s (IWM’s) 14-minute Easter Rising, Dublin 1916. The IWM has little information on the origins of the film, and its intertitles are missing.

Ad for the exhibition at Belfast’s Panopticon of Dublin Revolt, a long film of the aftermath of the Rising; the similarly titled film at the Imperial is actually the Topical Budget. Belfast News-Letter 8 May 1916: 4.

Ad for the exhibition at Belfast’s Panopticon of Dublin Revolt, a long film of the aftermath of the Rising; the similarly titled film at the Imperial is actually the Topical Budget. Belfast News-Letter 8 May 1916: 4.

However, under the title Dublin Revolt, the IWM film was shown at Belfast’s Panopticon for the week of 8-13 May, and in other Belfast cinemas for the latter half of that week. The film had intertitles, including “[‘T]he Sinn Feiners marching into Dublin,’ ‘The Parade of the National Volunteers and Sinn Feiners,’ ‘Liberty Hall,’ ‘British Picket at the Custom House,’ ‘Wounded Sinn Feiners in Hospital,’ ‘British Armoured Car’” (“Panopticon,” 9 May).  The Panopticon’s ad in the Belfast News-Letter claimed that the film was “Taken by Our Own Operator,” but it may have been shot by Norman Whitten of General Film Supply, Ireland’s most prominent maker of film topicals. Paddy, Irish correspondent of the trade journal Bioscope, reported that Whitten “was out very early with his camera, and secured practically 2,000 feet of exceptionally interesting views.” Given the chaos of the picture-house business in Dublin after the Rising and the international interest in events, he sold these to “Messrs. Jury’s Imperial Pictures, Limited, and Mr. Whitten crossed over to England with the negatives so as to make sure that they reached their destination” (Paddy, 18 May). The Bohemian may have secured a 1,000-foot cut of the GFS film (Condon).

Framegrab from Easter Rising, Dublin 1916 (IWM 194) showing newsboys selling the Irish Times of 3 May 1916 against the ruins of Eden Quay.

Framegrab from Easter Rising, Dublin 1916 (IWM 194) showing newsboys selling the Irish Times of 3 May 1916 against the backdrop of the ruins on Eden Quay.

In Dublin, these films appear to have been designed to attract into the picture houses the people who were wandering the destroyed city centre fascinated by the ruins. Paddy reported that “people are not too keen on pictures just at the moment,” but were instead watching as “[o]dd walls of ruined buildings are being pulled down in Sackville Street […T]he streets are packed with people in dense masses, quite oblivious to the fact that some portion of the bricks and mortar may fall on them” (Paddy, 18 May).

Dublin Evening Mail 10 May 1916: 2.

Dublin Evening Mail 10 May 1916: 2.

Films in other venues were fulfilling different purposes. For four days beginning on 10 May, Dublin’s Theatre Royal – a legitimate theatre that only occasionally showed films – chose films that emphasized the loyalty of Dublin citizens. The Royal showed the War Office films, The Battlefield of Neuve Chapelle, which had previously been exhibited in the city, and the new With the Irish at the Front. “The pictures will be of special interest to all citizens,” observed the Irish Times, “but particularly to those whose relatives figure in the scenes from which the photographs have been taken” (“Theatre Royal”). This demonstration of loyalty appears to have been successful because the “pictures were warmly applauded by the audience, among which were many soldiers.”

Belfast News-Letter 6 May 1916: 8.

Belfast News-Letter 6 May 1916: 8.

The disruption to communications and transport caused by the Rising had effects on cinema around the country. “Splendid programmes have been submitted at the ‘National’” in Mullingar

where, despite the dislocation of all business resulting from the troubles in Dublin at Easter, the management were enabled to keep up a capital supply of films. In the case of the ‘Exploits of Elaine,’ however, the films could not be procured by any cinema, during the period of traffic dislocation, and it was only this week that the welcome announcement could be made that the great serial would be resumed. (“National Picture Palace.”)

Although the second week in May brought Dublin Revolt to Belfast’s Panopticon, the lack of a train service between Dublin and Belfast until 3 May meant that manager-proprietor Fred Stewart could not show the films he had advertised for the first week (“Panopticon,” 2 May). As well as this, the cancellation of the planned visit by the D’Oly Carte Opera Company during the week of 15-20 May caused Belfast’s Opera House to retain the film Britain Prepared for a second week (“Grand Opera House”).

Given the disruption and excitement generated by the Rising, other developments seem to have been taken in stride. These included the introduction of the Entertainment Tax and of Daylight Saving Time, and a government focus on cinema as the cause of juvenile crime. Irish newspapers widely reported Home Secretary Herbert Samuel’s statement in Westminster that one of the causes of the considerable rise in juvenile crime in provincial towns was “the character of some of the films shown at cinematograph theatres” (“Crime and the Cinema”). The Leitrim Observer took up the issue in its editorial at the end of May. “There can be no doubt that the cinema has abundantly established its claim as a cheap, popular, and harmless form of amusement and recreation, so far as the adults are concerned,” it argued. “Whether the ordinary cinematograph entertainment is good for young children is another matter” (“Children and Cinemas”). Although acknowledging that parents without childcare had to bring their children to the picture houses with them, the writer thought this a poor excuse if harm was actually being done to the young people.

Article explaining rates of Entertainment Tax; Evening Telegraph 15 May 1916: 1.

Article explaining rates of Entertainment Tax; Evening Telegraph 15 May 1916: 1.

The much heralded Entertainment Tax came into force on 15 May 1916. A reporter for the Cork Examiner gave the matter considerable attention, interviewing theatre managers and analyzing who was paying most. The writer found picture-house managers relatively untroubled by the measure, arguing that if there was any effect at all, it would likely only be for the first week or so.  The writer also pointed out that if there were any decreased attendance, it might in any case be attributed to good summer weather.

Dublin's Bohemian advertises new tax; Evening Telegraph 15 May 1916: 2.

Dublin’s Bohemian advertises new tax; Evening Telegraph 15 May 1916: 2.

However, s/he also noted that the percentage increase “reverses the rule of imposing the highest percentage of tax on the well to do” (“Entertainment Tax,” 16 May). The tax increased the price of the cheapest penny tickets by a ½p  or 50% while those paying for expensive seats between 2s 6d and 5s paid only 3d or between 10% and 5%. “As the actual increases in prices are comparatively small,” s/he nevertheless concluded, “the public will in all probability adapt themselves to the new conditions without any serious demur.” The writer of the Southern Star’s “Bandon Notes” column took a similar view. “The young lads of the town who constantly patronise the pictures in large numbers will be, one would be inclined to think, seriously hit by the tax,” s/he initially contended. “However, where a young lad would be able to make out 3d for the pictures, he would also be able to find 4d. Therefore, from their point of view, we think things will go on as usual.”

Examining the amount raised during the tax’s first week, the Belfast News-Letter found that the bulk of the receipts came from picture houses rather than theatres. Using figures from Liverpool, it estimated that £900 of the £1,600 tax collected in the city came from cinemas (“Entertainment Tax,” 24 May).

The introduction of Daylight Saving Time on 21 May proved even less controversial in the Irish cinema trade. Among the Dublin theatre and picture house managers/proprietors interviewed by an Irish Independent reporter, manager Richard Bell of the Sackville Picture House and John J. Farrell, who owned several Dublin picture houses, expressed the view that the measure would not affect them in any way and that they saw no reason to change their hours of opening. Only Barney Armstrong of the Empire Theatre thought the regulation “would likely have the effect of slightly reducing the attendances during the summer months, especially at the first ‘house’” (“Daylight Saving Act”). For picture houses that opened from the early afternoon, this was less of an issue.

By the end of May, life in the Dublin appeared to be returning to normal, albeit among the ruins of the city centre. Paddy noted that “[m]arital law in Dublin has been considerably modified, people now being allowed out until 12 o’clock. This means that one can visit a theatre or music hall in comfort and still be able to catch the last tram home.” Even if many picture houses were slower in settling down after the Rising, this was due to good weather, which “proved equally as strong an attraction as the spectacle of falling buildings” (Paddy, 25 May).

References

“Bandon Notes.” Southern Star 20 May 1916: 5.

“The Carlton Cinema.” Irish Times 9 May 1916: 3.

“Children and Cinemas.” Leitrim Observer 27 May 1916: 3.

Condon, Denis. “‘Pictures in Abeyance’: Irish Cinema and the Aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising.” Moving Worlds April 2016.

“Crime and the Cinema.” Leitrim Observer 20 May 1916: 7.

“Daylight Saving Act: Favourable Irish Recption.” Irish Independent 19 May 1916: 4.

“The Dublin Rebellion.” Southern Star 6 May 1916: 2.

“Entertainment Tax Comes into Operation.” Cork Examiner 16 May 1916: 6.

“The Entertainment Tax: £1,600 the First Week’s Yield in Liverpool.” Belfast News-Letter 24 May 1916: 4.

“Grand Opera House: ‘Britain Prepared.’” Belfast News-Letter 16 May 1916: 2.

“Mary Street Picture House.” Irish Times 9 May 1916: 3.

“National Picture Palace.” Westmeath Examiner 20 May 1916: 4.

“Our London Letter: Dublin Wreckage Films.” Irish Independent 15 May 1916: 2.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope  18 May 1916: 845; 25 May 1916: 911.

“The Panopticon.” Belfast News-Letter 2 May 1916: 2; 9 May 1916: 2.

“The Pillar Picture House.” Irish Times 9 May 1916: 3.

“The Rising in Dublin: Scenes in the Ruins.” Ulster Herald 13 May 1916: 3.

“Rotunda Pictures.” Irish Times 9 May 1916: 3.

“Theatre Royal.” Irish Times 9 May 1916, p. 3.

 

Irish Cinema and the Desire for Change in April 1916

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Among the Situations Wanted ads, the Waterville projectionist seeks new prospects; Irish Independent 1 Apr. 1916: 6.

Among the Situations Wanted ads, a Waterville projectionist seeks new prospects; Irish Independent 1 Apr. 1916: 6.

Desiring a change of job, Edward McCabe, the operator (projectionist) at the cinema in Waterville, Co. Kerry, put a small ad in the Irish Independent outlining his five years of experience and seeking “good offers only.” McCabe was expectant – or at least hopeful – of an improved situation, and given cinema’s continuing growth despite the war, his prospects seemed good. Change was certainly coming to Ireland in April 1916, if not of the kind for which McCabe expressed a desire. Planned and executed by a small group of insurgent nationalists, socialists and women’s rights campaigners against British rule, the Easter Rising that month would be the catalyst for profound social and political change, but the cinema had few direct links with it. Although the Rising took place largely in Dublin between 24 and 29 April, the failure of the rebels to land arms in north Kerry – far from Waterville in the south – and the arrest of Rising leader Roger Casement as he was set ashore from a German U-Boat on 21 April influenced events in Dublin and elsewhere. When the Kerry events caused the planned Easter Sunday Rising to be initially cancelled and then rescheduled to Easter Monday, Frank Hardiman and his comrades in the Irish Volunteers and the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood in Galway were thrown into confusion. Manager of the Galway’s Town Hall Picture Palace for James T. Jameson’s Irish Animated Picture Company, Hardiman was arrested on Tuesday, 25 April, paraded with other rebels through the streets and imprisoned on a ship in Galway Bay (“Statement of Frank Hardiman”).

Beside the iconic ruins of the Dublin Bread Company on Dublin's Lower Sackville/O'Connell Street in late May/early April 1916 were the ruins of the smaller Grand Cinema, its projection box visible.

To the left of the iconic ruins of the DBC (Dublin Bread Company) on Dublin’s Lower Sackville/O’Connell Street in late April/early May 1916 were the ruins of the smaller Grand Cinema, its projection box visible on the first floor. Source: Irish Times.

The Rising was even more of a surprise than this for most people working in Irish cinema, and the few who became directly involved did so because they got caught up in events. Despite apparently having no direct role in the Rising, Irish-American diplomat James M. Sullivan, who had recently founded the Film Company of Ireland (FCOI), was arrested outside his home in Dublin on 28 April and imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol until 6 May (“Irish-American Minister”). The FCOI’s offices at 16 Henry Street would be completely destroyed during the fighting of Easter Week, but the disruption and destruction that were the Rising’s most immediate effects on cinema in Dublin can be seem most clearly in the many photographs of the ruined Grand Cinema – the mangled remains of its projectors clearly visible – beside the iconic hulk of the Dublin Bread Company on Lower Sackville/O’Connell Street. The World’s Fair Waxworks at 30 Henry Street, one of the first and cheapest picture houses in the city, was also completely ruined. Other picture houses were also damaged, if not to this extent, and the military authorities who administered the city after the surrender of the rebels prohibited all entertainments for a time.

Cinema was prohibited as part of a general curfew rather than for any direct role in the Rising, but it did constitute revolutionary change of a kind in Ireland, bringing an explosion of imagery to people and places that could not have experienced anything like it before. This is perhaps epitomized by the Waterville Cinema that Edward McCabe desired to leave on the eve of the Rising. It opened in late December or early January 1916, when a rare notice appeared in the Kerryman commenting on the success of its opening (“New Cinema, Waterville”). It changed the films it showed four times a week, on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, including such bill toppers as Chaplin’s The Property Man (US: Mutual, 1914), appropriate for a village that now hosts a Chaplin festival. That Waterville had a picture house at all is remarkable, given that the 1911 Census put its population at just 300 inhabitants and that the village itself was located on the extreme western periphery of Europe. It must have been a precarious enterprise, and it is extraordinary that it lasted even until McCabe sought to leave. The frequent changes suggest that the proprietor attempted to attract patrons several times a week in a region where many inhabitants were subsistence farmers or fisherfolk. Indeed, Ireland’s west coast held a special place in the nationalist consciousness because its remoteness made it a bastion of a tradition Irish culture that was often presented as an ascetic pastoralism conducted in the Irish language. If cinema could be in such a small, remote and traditional place, it seems it could be anywhere. However, Waterville and its environs had something that other poorer parts of the west did not. The peripherality of this part of Kerry had actually made it a hub of modernity, the site in the 1860s for the landing of the first transatlantic telegraphic cable and building of a telegraph station, located on nearby Valencia Island. News from America came first to this remote spot in south Kerry, and Waterville’s population included many who worked as relatively highly paid telegraphists. The patronage of these cable workers and their families who settled in the areas appears to have kept the cinema going at least until McCabe departed.

Skibbereen Coliseum SS 22 Apr 1916

Announcement of the reopening of Skibbereen’s Kinemac as the Coliseum; Sikbbereen Eagle 22 Apr. 1916: 8.

Despite its unusual demographics, Waterville was by no means alone among remote locations in south Kerry and west Cork experiencing the new media of the 1910s, albeit that these changes were occurring in towns with much larger populations. Founded by vibrator entrepreneur Gerald Macaura in 1914, the troubled Kinemac in Skibbereen (pop. 3,021) reopened on 25 April 1916 under a new name, the Coliseum, managed by Andy Wright’s Southern Coliseums. Clonakilty, Co. Cork (pop. 2,961) also saw developments in its cinema enterprises, some of which were not entirely legal. On 23 March, 19-year-old Michael “Murt” O’Donovan was charged at a special court in the town with defrauding Alexander Bonthorne of Faulkland, Scotland and Malachy Brady of Tudor House, Roscommon by failing to supply home cinema equipment for which they had paid him (“Special Court”). O’Donovan had no link to Clonakilty’s picture house, which drew audiences from its hinterland. “‘Where are the boys of the village tonight?’” asked the columnist of the Southern Star’s “Shannonvale Notes.” “They are at the ‘Movies’ escorting certain young ladies and their lady friend who lives up [the] street. Since the Cinematograph started in Clon, it has been well patronised by the boys of our village.” Accompanying young ladies to the cinema was not looked on favourably by young men everywhere. When some of Clones, Co. Monaghan’s unmarried men founded a bachelors’ club to resist a mooted Bachelor Tax, they expressed their opposition to the practice of bringing local ladies “to picture houses, on excursions, picnics, motor drives, or cycle runs” (“Clones Bachelors”).

Even in such towns as Naas, Co. Kildare (pop. 3,842), which had only occasional picture shows, cinema could be encountered on a stroll. “I confess I knew very little of Charlie Chaplin until the other day,” the Kildare Observer’s “Items and Ideas” columnist revealed. “Several times have I heard references to him in a ditty chanted in chorus by small boys from the lanes of Naas as they paraded the suburban thoroughfares.” The columnist included the words, sung to the tune of the 1907 song “Red Wing”:

The moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin,

His boots is crackin’, for want of blackin’,

And his khaki trousers need a mendin’

Before we send him

To the Dardanelles.

By April 1916, many involved in Irish cinema were resisting or embracing changes sought by the British government, which was increasingly finding cinema useful in various ways. Despite the industry’s strenuous lobbying against it, the government was undeterred in its determination to divert some of the money spent on entertainments into its much depleted war reserves; it set 15 May as the day on which the new Amusement Tax would be imposed on picture houses and theatres. There seemed little firm opposition to it outside the industry in Ireland, the Evening Herald arguing that no valid argument can be advanced against it” (“Where Ireland Goes Out”).  Film’s increasingly direct role in recruiting in Ireland was highlighted when H. Higginson announced that he – like Edward McCabe – desired a change and was resigning the managership of the newly reopened Clontarf Cinema in Dublin to lead a cinema recruiting campaign. He proposed to give two shows in each place the campaign reached, the first exhibiting army and navy films, and the second offering a regular drama and comedy programme whose proceeds would go to various war funds. He also intended “to arrange so that the first man who is actually accepted and passed by the doctor for service with the colours will be presented free with a high-class solid silver luminous wristlet watch, the usual shop price of which is 43s” (“Cinema Recruiting Campaign”). No such recruiting event appears to have been reported later in April, but James J. Stafford’s lent his cinema for a “war meeting” in Longford on 14 April at which films showed “what the war means, in many phases, and the large gathering that thronged the Theatre were treated to a series of recruiting speeches which were generally acknowledged to be the strongest delivered since the start of the military canvass of the country” (“War Meeting in Longford”).

The long-running campaign for educational uses of film gained a new public advocate in mid-April 1916 when David Gilmore from Belfast’s Ormeau Road wrote a letter to the Belfast Newsletter outlining how the dangers of carelessly discarded fruit peel might be ameliorated cinematically. He suggested that “if each cinema show displayed a short film at each exhibition depicting the evil of throwing slippery things on the sidewalk, and a reading caution not to do so, thousands of children would take thought and not throw peel, &c., where people would slip on it.” His enthusiasm for this early public service film extended to an imagined scenario: “The little silent drama could show a child throwing peel down, a person slipping thereon, lying in a hospital, and then creeping about on crutches. Or the drama could end by a funeral, as slipping on orange peel has caused in more than one case” (“Throwing Orange Peel”). He may have been joking, but if not, he displayed a surprising unawareness that films already dealt extensively with casually or maliciously tossed peel, film comedians having done, if anything, too much to exploit the banana skin’s comic potential.

Cellists Clyde Twelvetrees and Joseph Schofield Source: Royal Irish Academy of Music blog.

The changes that picture houses had brought to Dublin’s entertainment world meant that they competed for audiences with popular theatres. By no means for the first or last time, this was explicit again in the week beginning 17 April 1916, when the Empire Theatre’s programme consisted not of its usual variety acts but of the film The Rosary (US: Selig, 1915), starring Kathlyn Williams. The film has been shown first in the city at the Theatre Royal over the 1916 New Year week and had had subsequent runs at the Princess Cinema in Rathmines (14-16 Feb.), the Phoenix Picture Palace on Ellis Quay (6-9 Apr.) and the Dame Street Picture House (13-15 Apr.). Despite the recent showings at the Phoenix and Dame, Empire manager Barney Armstrong must have considered this religious-themed film a good prospect in the run-up to Easter weekend because he offered additional musical attractions that would see the film accompanied “with organ and full orchestra effects” (“Empire Theatre”). When shown at the picture houses, the film had received little attention from newspaper critics, but when it appeared at the Empire, the main daily newspapers gave it as much critical attention as they gave to any other show. However, they gave it a mixed reception. Although the Evening Telegraph reviewer called The Rosary a “splendid” film – perhaps referring to its seven-reel length – s/he complained that it showed “a woeful ignorance of Irish Catholic sentiment, and the impersonations [offer] very little suggestion of an Irish atmosphere” (ibid).

The Bohemian advertises its engagement of Twelvetrees prominent in its Easter programme, beside the Carlton’s ad for its attractions, including Erwin Goldwater’s solo playing; Dublin Evening Mail 22 Apr 1916: 2.

The Bohemian advertised its engagement of Twelvetrees prominently in its Easter programme, beside the Carlton’s ad for its attractions, including Erwin Goldwater’s solo playing; Dublin Evening Mail 22 Apr 1916: 2.

The disparities in the press attention that the Rosary received at the picture houses and at the Empire were an indication that theatre remained the dominant entertainment medium, but there were also indications that this situation was changing. In attracting patrons to The Rosary, the Empire advertised the superiority of the musical attractions it could offer. However, several of the city’s picture houses were enhancing their musical offerings to compete against each other and the theatres. On St Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1916, concert violinist Erwin Goldwater had become resident soloist at the recently opened Carlton Cinema. This somewhat undermined the Bohemian Picture Theatre long advertised claim that it possessed the largest and best orchestra of any of the city’s picture houses. In response, the Bohemian engaged Clyde Twelvetrees – concert cellist and professor of the Royal Irish Academy of Music – to play as part of its daily programme. “Up to the present,” the Irish Independent commented, “if one wanted to hear a few famed soloists one had to attend the big concerts; but now one can hear the very best at convenience (“Dublin and District”). And these musical opportunities were set to increase, as Dublin’s Pillar Picture House engaged another renowned cellist, Joseph Schofield.

Schofield’s debut at the Pillar did not, however, take place as scheduled, at 4pm on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. By that time, members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army under Patrick Pearse and James Connolly had taken possession of the nearby GPO, and the Rising was underway. Dublin’s cinema screens would remain dark for two weeks as more urgent changes took the stage.

References

“A Cinema Recruiting Campaign.” Dublin Evening Mail 6 Apr. 1916: 4.

“Clones Bachelors Establish a Washing, Cooking and Household Managing Club.” Anglo-Celt 1 Apr. 1916: 11.

“Clontarf Cinema Theatre to be Opened on Sundays.”  Evening Telegraph 31 Mar. 1916: 3.

“Dublin and District.” Irish Independent 22 Apr. 1916: 4.

“The Empire Theatre.” Evening Telegraph 18 Apr. 1918: 6.

“Irish-American Minister: Unpleasant Experiences in Dublin.” Evening Herald 9 May 1916: 1.

“Items and Ideas.” Kildare Observer 1 Apr. 1916: 5.

“New Cinema, Waterville.” Kerryman 8 Jan. 1916: 8.

“Shannonvale Notes.” Southern Star 15 Apr. 1916: 1.

“Special Court in Clonakilty.” Skibbereen Eagle 1 Apr. 1916: 3.

“Statement of Frank Hardiman.” Bureau of Military History, Witness Statement 406, p. 2-3 <http://bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0406.pdf#page=1&gt;

“Throwing Orange Peel, &c., on Sidewalks.” Belfast Newsletter 12 Apr. 1916: 6.

“War Meeting in Longford.” Longford Leader 22 Apr. 1916: 1.

“War Pictures.” Longford Leader 15 Apr. 1916: 1.

“Where Ireland Goes Out.” Evening Herald 13 Apr. 1916: 2.

From the Stomach to the Front: Projecting the World on Irish Screens in April 1915

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The growth of picture houses in the 1910s provided Irish people with unprecedented visual access to the world. The increasing number of cinemagoers could view otherwise difficult or impossible to see geographical spaces, the geopolitical spaces of Europe’s battlefields and even the intimate spaces within the human body.

Stomach film DEM 24 Mar 1915

Dublin Evening Mail 24 March 1915: 5.

“You can take a series of X-Ray pictures at intervals of a few minutes each, while the stomach is busy digesting food,” observed an article in the Dublin Evening Mail in late March 1915.

[P]ut these pictures together on a film, thrown them on a screen, and –

You virtually have a MOVING PICTURE of the stomach in action while digesting your food. (“Moving Pictures of the Stomach.”)

Designed to look like a news item, this article was actually an advertisement for Bisturated Magnesia, a treatment for excess stomach acid. It used the term “moving pictures” – capitalized like no other word in the body of the article – to attract the roving eye of newspaper readers (and film historians), dyspeptic or not. Some advertisers clearly saw moving pictures as a desirable technology with which to associate their product in this way, as the promoters of White’s Fruit Jelly Crystals had done in the same newspaper in August 1913 (“Really Moving Picture”).

In their use of stomach X-rays, the advertisers of Bisturated Magnesia were, however, undoubtedly making a specific reference to Dr John MacIntyre’s experiments in what is now called medical imaging and specifically to Dr John MacIntyre’s X-Ray Film (1896, 1909), which includes early cineradiography of the stomach. Despite being a medical doctor and pioneer of radiography, MacIntyre could also see that X-rays were a spectacular visual technology, of interest far beyond the medical community (Cartwright 22). As such, he had something in common with the showmen who in the late 1890s exploited the entertainment possibilities of X-rays in theatres and fairgrounds, including in Ireland (Condon). This occurred at precisely the same time as the first projected moving pictures were being exhibited. Unlike moving pictures, however, the entertainment career of X-rays was short. For a start, the danger of radiation burns from prolonged exposure to the rays soon became obvious. As well as this, once audiences had seen the bones of their hands or the contents of a locked wooden box, the novelty value of X-rays was exhausted, but they retained a strong imaginative fascination. By contrast, moving pictures were inexhaustible in the potential subjects they could show, from X-ray images of such interior spaces to the exterior spaces of the historical world and the imagined spaces of fiction.

Moving pictures has also prompted the creation of the new social spaces of the picture houses, which were becoming increasingly ubiquitous on the Irish streetscape in April 1915. Although the Grand in Lurgan, Co. Armagh, had opened in autumn 1914, it garnered attention beyond local audiences when it was reviewed in glowing terms by the Bioscope’s “Jottings from Ulster” columnist on 1 April 1915. “Situate on the main street and approached through a spacious and ornate foyer,” the Grand held about 1,000 patrons who were stratified by their ability to pay 3d., 6d. or 1s. This was not, then, a utopian space of horizontal social relations. Although a stepped floor ensured that all patrons had a good view of the screen, “the patrons of the highest priced seats are comfortably and exclusively catered for in a handsome balcony abreast of the operating chamber, nest-o’spring seats and deep framed backs being provided in this section” (“Jottings,” 1 Apr.). Jottings favoured a programme that combined films with live acts, expressing strong approval of the fact that H. G. Austin, who managed the Grand for proprietor Sam Hewitt, had introduced varieties acts into the programme. As a result of this combination of entertainments, Jottings concluded: “I would not be surprised to find the magnificent tapestry with which the walls are decorated, being removed to make room for the appreciative crowds.” However, like other Irish towns with a similar population (12,553), Lurgan had more than one picture house. At the longer-established Picture House in Carnegie Street, manager Clarke embodied Jotting’s favoured combination of variety and cinema, having been part of the variety duo Clarke and Clare (“Jotings,” 22 Apr.).

Evening Telegraph 3 Apr. 1915: 1.

Evening Telegraph 3 Apr. 1915: 1.

If the Lurgan Grand was in many ways typical of the picture houses opening in mid-sized Irish towns at this time, Dublin’s Coliseum Theatre, which opened on Easter Monday, 5 April 1915, was exceptional. With a seating capacity of 3,000, it was Ireland biggest entertainment venue, and its stage was “one of the largest in the kingdom, being not less than 80 ft. wide and 40 ft. deep, capable of staging the largest spectacular scenes” ([Editorial Item]). In its initial stage of development, the Coliseum had been planned as a large picture house called the Premier Picture Palace, but its promoters had decided that another Dublin variety theatre would be more lucrative than a cinema. Nevertheless, given that film projection had become a stable part of variety programmes, a projection booth had been incorporated into the plans for the building and not as an unsightly supplementary structure within the auditorium, as was the case in older theatres. Praising the features of the Coliseum in advance of its opening, the Evening Herald noted that the “biograph chamber is so designed that it will beautify not mar the general scheme” (“Dublin’s New Theatre”).

Despite a general acknowledgment of the quality of the construction and the beauty of the finished theatre, controversy dogged both the building and the opening of the Coliseum. As noted in an earlier post, although other Dublin theatre owners had objected at an August 1914 hearing to the granting of a patent to this new venue, architect, diarist and theatregoer Joseph Holloway had spoken in favour of the new theatre because it offered the prospect of more drama in the city. The most immediate drama came offstage, from such craftspeople as local fibrous-plaster companies and furniture makers who were denied contracts for work in favour of cheaper British firms. In Dublin, the support of local industries was not only a way of creating good will among potential theatregoers but also of mollifying nationalist Anglophobia. With an ill-tempered public correspondence between the theatre and contractors conducted through the newspapers, the negative publicity for the theatre continued over months, causing Holloway to change his mind about its promise and “wish the new theatre a speedy failure under the circumstances. There is no hope ahead for us poor playgoers in Dublin!” (Holloway, 17 Mar. 1915).

Holloway attended the Coliseum’s opening night, and unlike the newspapers’ positive reviews, his diary entries suggest that the management misjudged the Dublin audience. This is noteworthy given that Lorcan Sherlock, the city’s former Lord Mayor, was one of the theatre’s directors. The theatre’s opening bill was headed by the singer Zona Vevey accompanied on organ by Max Erand. Although their act had been going very well and they had been called back for several encores,

the turn that was doing so well was completely spoiled by her singing of a recruiting Jingo song, “Your Country Wants You.” “It does, and we intend to stop it” said a man behind me as she sang. “Give us something Irish” shouted another, and then I knew trouble was brewing for her, and sure enough when she had finished, a stream of hissing and booing broke out and the two artists, retired amid a tornado of ugly sounds. (Holloway, 5 Apr. 1915.)

http://comeheretome.com/2014/05/09/is-it-over-yet-hiding-out-in-the-coliseum-theatre-1916/

Opened in Easter 1915, the Coliseum was destroyed in the fighting of Easter 1916. “The possibility of fire is put almost outside the pale of consideration” (“Dublin’s New Theatre”). Source: http://comeheretome.com/2014/05/09/is-it-over-yet-hiding-out-in-the-coliseum-theatre-1916/

The bioscope pictures – “introducing the Topical Budget of up-to-date current events” – with which the programme concluded appears to have been entirely unremarkable because they received no coverage, but Holloway claims that the opening night ended ignominiously:

A bar of England’s anthem brought the first show to an inglorious end, amid hissing, which cut short the music, as the imported conductor dropped his baton when he saw the way the land lay. This anthem has always been translated, when played in Ireland, into ‘To Hell With The Catholics’, and will always, I fear until we are allowed to govern ourselves. Therefore, it is better omitted from programmes of a general nature. (Ibid.)

Despite Holloway’s misgivings, the Coliseum’s opening was widely reported a success, and its advent tipped the balance of entertainment seats in Dublin city centre firmly back from picture house to theatre. The Evening Herald’s Man About Town was disappointed by the hackneyed nature of some of the opening acts, but he also saw a packed house that included “a few eminent K.C.’s, a land commissioner, several leading medicos, an Abbey Theatre author of distinction, and a trustee of the same concern.” For the Evening Telegraph, among the reasons that the Coliseum “opened its career auspiciously” was that it enjoyed an “advantageously central position […] adjoining the General Post Office and at the tram terminus for all parts of the city and suburbs” (“Coliseum Theatre”).

Those same trams might bring pleasure seekers away from the city centre and to the increasing number of picture houses in the suburbs. The arrival of the picture house had reconfigured entertainment space in the city. Some of the suburban picture houses courted more middle-class patrons in search of higher standard of entertainment in the guise of exclusive films, comfortable surroundings and musical offerings. The Bohemian Picture Theatre in Phibsboro – an area on the northern edge of the city well served by two tramlines – was building its reputation as a venue that provided enhanced musical accompaniment. The Bioscope’s Paddy observed that “one of the finest orchestras to be found in any picture outside London – or in London for the matter of that – is that now installed in the Bohemian.” The Bohemian had twelve musicians “and every instrument seems to have been pressed into use, thus affording a musical feast absolutely unapproached by any other house in Ireland” (Paddy, 25 Mar.).

Cinemas also competed for audience by offering more luxurious furnishings. Dublin’s Pillar Picture House had “an immense mirror […] beautifully set in a gilded frame[…] Thick luxurious carpets are on the stairs leading to the balcony, and the general appearance of the entrance leads one to imagine that a fairy palace of some sort was about to be entered” (Paddy, 4 Mar.). Some picture houses offered early evening patrons free tea. “A big feature is now being made of glow-lamp teas at Kinema House, Belfast,” noted Jottings. “Dainty tables with shaded lights are arranged in full view of the screen, and considerable advantage is being taken of the innovation by those who sacrifice their siestas to the pictures in the afternoons” (Jottings, 1 Apr.). This kind of offering seemed to have been designed to appeal largely to middle-class women who had the leisure to visit the picture houses while shopping in cities and towns in the afternoons.

Some religious groups and magistrates saw cinemagoing as an activity to be restricted rather than encouraged among the middle class. One of the main ways in which they sought to do this was through restrictions or a ban on Sunday opening. The ongoing controversy on Sunday opening came to something of a head at the end of March, when the Recorder of Dublin heard applications for music-and-dancing licences for picture houses. The Recorder reiterated his view that Sunday opening should be restricted to working-class areas of the city, where people had little opportunity to attend entertainments during the week. He therefore granted just a six-day music licence to Jacob Elliman’s Blackrock Picture House because it was located in “a residential place, with a very small number of working people” (“Picture Theatres”). And he again refused a Sunday licence to the Dame Street Picture House, which, he argued, was not frequented by working-class people because it was located on a city-centre shopping street similar to Grafton Street and Sackville/O’Connell Street.

Some religious groups and magistrates saw cinemagoing as an activity to be restricted rather than encouraged among the middle class. One of the main ways in which they sought to do this was through restrictions or a ban on Sunday opening. The ongoing controversy on Sunday opening came to something of a head at the end of March, when the Recorder of Dublin heard applications for music-and-dancing licences for picture houses. The Recorder reiterated his view that Sunday opening should be restricted to working-class areas of the city, where people had little opportunity to attend entertainments during the week. He therefore granted just a six-day music licence to Jacob Elliman’s Blackrock Picture House because it was located in “a residential place, with a very small number of working people” (“Picture Theatres”). And he again refused a Sunday licence to the Dame Street Picture House, which, he argued, was not frequented by working-class people because it was located on a city-centre shopping street similar to Grafton Street and Sackville/O’Connell Street.

These cases reveal a curious class, sectarian and even acoustic geography of the city that emerged in relation to its picture houses.

References

Cartwright, Lisa. Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine’s Visual Culture. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1995.

“Coliseum Theatre: The Opening on Monday.” Evening Telegraph 3 Apr. 1915: 4.

Condon, Denis. “‘Spleen of a Cabinet Minister at Work’: Exhibiting X-Rays and the Cinematograph in Ireland, 1896.” Film History and National Cinema: Studies in Irish Film 2. Ed. John Hill and Kevin Rockett. Four Courts Press: Dublin, 2005.

“Dublin’s New Theatre: The Opening of the Coliseum on Monday.” Evening Herald 2 Apr. 1915: 5.

“Jottings from Ulster.” Bioscope 1 Apr. 1915: 33; 15 Apr. 1915: 260.

The Man About Town. “Things Seen and Heard.” Evening Herald 6 Apr. 1915: 4.

“Moving Pictures of the Stomach During Digestion.” Dublin Evening Mail 24 Mar. 1915: 5.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 4 Mar. 1915: 824; 18 Mar. 1915: 1051; 25 Mar. 1915: 1111.

“Picture Theatres: Recorder and Sunday Opening: Many Applications.” Evening Herald 29 Mar. 1915: 5.

“A Really Moving Picture.” Dublin Evening Mail 12 Jul. 1913: 3.

“Sunday Opening in Dublin: Important Cases.” Bioscope 8 Apr. 1915: 155.

“Growing in Favour to an Enormous Extent”: New Media, Ireland 1914

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A little after 7pm on Friday, 6 February 1914, architect and inveterate theatregoer Joseph Holloway and his niece Eileen O’Malley arrived at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre to find that the parterre was already full and there was standing room only in the upper circle. They decided not to stand for that evening’s final performance of the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, which was a benefit for comedian Jay Laurier, the actor who played Miffins. Instead they walked to the Nassau Street corner of Grafton Street to take a tram to the Dorset Picture Hall where they spent the evening watching a series of “interesting” but unnamed pictures (Holloway). It’s not clear why they passed the other picture houses along the tram route across the city to favour the Dorset, but Holloway seems to have taken a liking to the Dorset, having seen Kissing Cup (Britain: Hepworth, 1913) there with Eileen on 2 January and The Child from the Sea alone on 28 January. He had also recently seen Germinal (France: Pathé, 1913) at the Princess Cinema in Rathmines and the show of Kinemacolor films at the Queen’s Theatre.

Handbill for films at the Dorset during the week of 15-21 June 1914 with three changes of programme.

Handbill for films at the Dorset during the week of 15-21 June 1914 with three changes of programme. National Library of Ireland.

Holloway’s diary entries on his visits to Dublin’s picture houses are both unique and frustrating, providing the only sustained first-hand account by an Irish cinemagoer of this period but also offering merely tantalizing details of his visits. This contrasts markedly with his often lengthy comments on the city’s theatrical shows, many of which he saw on their opening night. Although he was committed to the theatre, he had also become since 1910 – almost without realizing it himself, it seems – a regular picture-house patron. Although more detail on goings-on in cinemas from an audience member’s point of view would certainly be welcome, the way in which going to the picture house had become such a mundane activity is fascinating. In his diary, Holloway notes significant films alongside theatre shows at the start of a week and often integrates a film show into his schedule, sometimes choosing a film but often choosing to see whatever was on at a favoured picture house.

Holloway and other cinemagoers would have increasing choice as 1914 progressed. “Dublin has not by a long way stopped in its career of opening picture houses,” reveals Paddy in the trade journal Bioscope in early February 1914. He mentions plans to open 18 more cinemas in the city, with plans for eight already approved.

There is no doubt that some of these new fry will pay, because they are to be built in districts badly provided for in the matter of theatres, but when I hear that it is proposed to open three new houses in Grafton Street, and two more in Sackville Street, I wonder what will happen. (Paddy, 5 Feb).

Comments on the growing popularity of Dublin picture houses were not limited to the trade papers. “There can be no gainsaying the popularity of picture theatres in the Irish metropolis,” comments Irish Times columnist the Clubman. “They seem to be always crowded and their proprietors must be making plenty of money out of them. Of course, the ‘man in the street’ will tell you that ‘the pictures’ are only a ‘craze,’ but they are a craze which will, I think, live for some time in Dublin, at any rate (“Dublin Topics”).

It was not just in Dublin, and it would not be a passing craze. In mid-January 1914, the Bioscope’s “Jottings from Ulster” columnist noted that the

Belfast Corporation cinematograph inspector, Mr. Campbell, reported at the last meeting of the Police Committee, that on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the 27th ult., 124,087 persons patronised the fourteen picture theatres in the city. These figures show an increase of about 15,000 as compared with Christmas, 1912, It is of considerable interest to note that 124,000 is roughly one-third of the entire population of Belfast; it may, therefore, be taken that the cinema is growing in favour to an enormous extent. (“Jottings,” 15 Jan.)

These are very interesting figures, adding some statistical support to the impression conveyed by Holloway’s diary and newspaper and trade-press articles. It remains more difficult to discern a hundred years later the degree to which individual films that appear to do so actually address such important issues as women’s suffrage, the labour movement and Home Rule. These questions might without too much distortion be phrased in the language of 2014 as concerning the way in which new media engage with questions of the changing nature of work, gender inequality and national sovereignty.

Asta Nielsen as suffrage activist Nelly Panburne being force fed in The Suffragette (1913).

Asta Nielsen as suffrage activist Nelly Panburne being force fed in The Suffragette (1913).

Women’s suffrage was one of the most prominent political questions of the 1910s, kept in the headlines by suffragette activism, including that by the Irish Women’s Franchise League. Suffragettes in Ireland – but not Irish suffragettes – had most directly used the new cinema technologies as a form of protest on the evening of 18 July 1912, when as part of a wider protest, English suffragettes Mary Leigh, Gladys Evans and Lizzie Baker had attempted to set fire to Dublin’s Theatre Royal by igniting the highly combustible nitrate film in the theatre’s cinematograph box between evening shows. “Had the lighted matches come in contact with the films, the substances of which are, of course, highly inflammable, a terrible disaster might have to be chronicled” (“Serious Suffragette Outrage”). For this and for a hatchet attack on British prime minster HH Asquith’s carriage, in which Irish nationalist MP John Redmond was injured, Leigh, Evans and Baker were sentenced to prison terms in Mountjoy Jail, where they joined eight Irish suffragettes and began a hunger strike.

Belfast's Panopticon advertises Asta Nielsen in The Suffragette (1913).

Belfast’s Panopticon advertises Asta Nielsen in The Suffragette (1913); Belfast Newsletter 3 Jan. 1914: 1.

Events such as these were fictionalized in the German film The Suffragette (Projektions AG, 1913), which offered Irish audiences the rare opportunity of seeing suffragettes on screen treated as something other than just comedy. Featuring the Danish star Asta Nielsen as Nelly Panburne – modelled on Christabel Pankhurst – the film shows how Nelly protests by breaking shop windows; is force-fed when she goes on hunger strike in prison; and carries a bomb intended to kill Lord Ascue, a British minister modelled on Asquith opposed to women’s rights. The film attempts to contain its radical energies with a romantic subplot that sees Nelly save Ascue  from the bomb and marry him. Despite the closeness of the film to actual events, the Belfast Newsletter commented that when it was exhibited in January 1914 at the Panopticon Picture Theatre, it “creates great merriment. Asta Neilson, described as the greatest of all picture artists, is seen at her best” (“Panopticon”).

Carson v Redmond
The confrontation between Irish unionists and nationalists had become such a part of popular discourse in Britain in early 1914 that this ad for films that had nothing to do with Ireland could expect to draw attention by using the names of Edward Carson and John Redmond as if they were prize fighters. Bioscope 12 Mar. 1914, p. 1186.

Perhaps the importance of the political events of a different kind in Belfast was among the factors that inclined the Newsletter towards downplaying a fictional representation of the suffrage movement. To keep up pressure on Asquith’s government, Edward Carson again visited Belfast In mid-January 1914 to rally unionist opponents of Irish home rule and review the massed ranks of the Ulster Volunteer Force prepared violently to resist the imposition of home rule. Such nationalist newspapers as Dublin’s Evening Telegraph and Belfast’s Irish News presented unionist demonstrations as a farce and drew attention instead to the counter-demonstration in Belfast led by nationalist MP Joseph Devlin (“Carson Comedy Co.,” “U.V.F. Comedy,” “Mr. Devlin, M.P., in West Belfast”). The unionists, however, again proved themselves more competent with the new cinematic medium. A newsreel camera was again in Belfast to record and relay images not of Devlin but of Carson, and this time, it was operated by Dublin-based Norman Whitten, who filmed the demonstration for Weisker Brothers, a firm to which he had recently affiliated (Paddy, 29 Jan.). Paddy commended Whitten for having the film of Carson ready to screen at Belfast’s Picture House, Royal Avenue on the evening of the rally (ibid).

Of more immediate concern to Dublin’s media from mid-January to early February was the end of the Lockout with the defeat of the striking workers. For the first three days of the week beginning Monday 19 January, the Evening Telegraph’s notice for the Phoenix Picture Palace recommended A Leader of Men, “dealing in a thrilling and sensation manner with an organised strike in a big shipbuilding industry. It is decidedly a picture that will appeal strongly to all at the present time” (“Phoenix Picture Palace”). On the same day, the Telegraph was reporting the “Collapse of Strike: No Food and No Money: Mr. Larkin Advise Men: To Go Back to Work: But to Sign No Agreement” (“Collapse of Strike”). If that drama was too close for comfort to current events, audiences could also enjoy more diverting material on the same bill in the dramas Fortune’s Turn and The Dumb Messenger and the comedies The Honeymooners, When Love Is Young and Cartoons, Mr Piffle. As well as this, to whom and in what way the film would appeal is not clear given that it is unlikely many of the workers impoverished by months of strike could have afforded to attend.

Nevertheless, as cinema continued to develop and picture houses occupied more spaces on the Irish streetscape, films would attract audiences not only by providing escape but also by confronting – both directly and obliquely – important political issues.

References

“Carson Comedy Co.: Performing in Belfast To-Day.” Evening Telegraph 17 Jan. 1914: 6.

“Collapse of Strike.” Evening Telegraph 20 Jan. 1914: 3.

“Dublin Topics by the Clubman.” Irish Times 31 Jan. 1914: 4.

Holloway, Joseph. Holloway Diaries. National Library of Ireland. 6 Feb. 1914: 295.

“Jottings from Ulster.” Bioscope 15 Jan. 1914: 263.

“Mr. Devlin, M.P., in West Belfast: Great Rallies of the Progressive Forces Hear Inspiriting Addresses.” Irish News 19 Jan. 1914: 5-6.

“Phoenix Picture Palace.” Evening Telegraph 20 Jan. 1913: 2.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 29 Jan. 1914: 454.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 5 Feb. 1914: 547.

“The Panopticon.” Belfast Telegraph 6 Jan. 1914: 9.

“Serious Suffragette Outrage: Two Attempts to Set Fire: To the Theatre Royal: An Explosive Used: A Panic Avoided.” Freeman’s Journal 19 Jul. 1912: 6.

“U.V.F. Comedy: Parade of the East Belfast Regiment: Inspection by Sir E. Carson.” Irish News 19 Jan. 1914: 7.

Duelling Cinematographs: “An Unrehearsed Picture”

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Liberty Hall, Beresford Place, in 1914, with members of the Irish Citizens’ Army, a militia formed to protect workers during the Lockout. From National Library of Ireland on Flickr Commons.

Moving pictures of events of the Dublin Lockout were taken, even if these do not – or are not known to – survive. On 25 October 1913, for instance, the Evening Telegraph reported on an incident of what might be called “duelling cinematographs.” This occurred during the trial on charges of sedition of Irish Transport Workers’ Union leader Jim Larkin and three colleagues as a result of their roles in the city’s strikes. Each morning of the trial, Larkin was accompanied on the walk of a mile from Liberty Hall, in Beresford Place, to the court in Green Street by a crowd of supporters, who waited outside the courthouse and accompanied him back to Liberty Hall, surrounded by police (“Back to Liberty Hall”). “Apparently by arrangement,” begins the Telegraph’s account of what it presents as a publicity event stage-managed for the camera on 25 October,

a cinematograph operator with his machine arrived at Liberty Hall in a taxi-cab about half past one o’clock this afternoon. He entered the building and soon afterwards he took up a position in one of the upper windows. Some 400 or 500 men were loitering about Beresford place, and they pressed forward to watch the operator’s movements, unaware of the fact that they were themselves to be pictured. Mr. James Larkin came to the window and warned them back, so that they would not be within range of the camera, and would also present a more imposing spectacle. There were also instructed to cheer and raise their caps so as to give the necessary life to the picture. All this was well managed, and doubtless the result will impress the patrons of some British or American picture palaces (“Cinema Machines”).

Who this camera operator was is not clear. It was likely to have been one of the several camera operators working in the city, among whom were Norman Whitten, those working for Gaumont and James T. Jameson, and other picture house owners/managers who had cameras and shot local films. Regardless of who shot this film, it shows that the union leadership were – like other political organizations of the time – beginning to think of the cinema as a publicity conduit, alongside the more established methods of pickets, mass meetings, newspapers and other form of print, and theatrical productions. The union was finally attempting to take control of this new means of representation.

In this iconography, Liberty Hall and Beresford Place played an important part as the location in the city where workers could congregate relatively freely and their leaders could address them. A Dublin Evening Mail article on the history of Liberty Hall helpfully sketches its descent from elite residence in the 18th century to hotel in which Dublin’s music hall entertainment originated to a near ruin at the beginning of the 20th century. “In 1908,” it concludes, “the tumble-down premises were taken by that stormy petrel, Jim Larkin, and turned into the headquarters of the Irish Transport Workers’ Union Since that the grimy old windows have looked out upon many a lurid scene” (“Liberty Hall”).

Irish Life 21 Nov. 1913: 247.

Irish Life 21 Nov. 1913: 247.

Larkin and the other union leaders were on trial for their part in inciting riot, particularly on 31 August, when they had been determined to – in the words of W.B. Yeats in “No Second Troy” – “hurl the little streets upon the great.” They had done this by holding a mass meeting on O’Connell/Sackville Street, one of what the Recorder had termed the city’s “principal streets,” whose dual naming encoded the Nationalist/Unionist struggle to gain symbolic control over the capital’s main thoroughfare. The police escort that accompanied Larkin and his supporters from Beresford Place to Green Street – passing Yeats’s Abbey Theatre – made sure that the trade unionists did not impose themselves on the shopper of O’Connell/Sackville Street.

Although union leaders appear to have been slow in using the cinema to promote their cause in the early weeks of the Lockout (a point already made here and here), by late October 1913, Larkin seems to have thought that cinema might provide another way of hurling the little streets unto the great. Although the authorities were intent on preventing trade unionists protesting on the city’s principal streets, a film of union activity might reach the cinemagoers at such prestigious picture houses as the Rotunda, Sackville or Grafton, and so bring Beresford Place to O’Connell/Sackville Street or Grafton Street.

While calling attention to this union film, the Telegraph article presents itself as unmasking Larkin’s manipulation of the truth. Commending Larkin and the camera operator for their direction of events, it acknowledges the film’s likely power to influence US or British audiences. It does not mention its influence over Irish audiences, partly as flattery of its readers’ shrewdness in seeing through the artifice, but also because the article goes beyond revealing Larkin’s deception to describe the Telegraph own counter-filmmaking. “A much more interesting series of pictures,” it reveals

was, however, obtained by our unauthorised cinema operator, who came upon the scene just as his rival had commenced from the window. At once he, too, began to work his machine from the street, obtaining, as he hopes, a more correct view of the crowd, and a complete record of Mr. Larkin’s work as stage manager. The latter series of pictures, if every produced, should add to the gaiety of nations (“Cinema Machines”).

This is an astonishing claim, describing a situation in which two films were shot of Larkin addressing a crowd of workers at Liberty Hall, the second one sponsored by a newspaper anxious to discredit the union leader. This second operator can no more be identified than the first, but it seems extraordinary that the newspaper was able to locate a cinematographer quickly enough to film the proceedings.

The last line of this quote – particularly the phrase “if ever produced” – casts some doubt on the Telegraph’s film ever being seen. This may be because there was some difficulty with the filming or that the cinematographer merely pretended to film. It may also be an acknowledgement that neither of these films would have been guaranteed a screening in Dublin (or abroad; the second film is here envisaged as contributing to “the gaiety of nations” rather than of Dublin or Ireland). Dublin picture houses included such newsreels as the Pathé Gazette or Topical Budget as part of their programmes and occasionally screened films of local political or social events such as the Dublin Horse Show. However, the picture houses seem deliberately to have avoided shooting and/or showing films of this contentious strike. There is no evidence that these films were shown in any Dublin picture house.

References

“Back to Liberty Hall.” Dublin Evening Mail 23 Oct. 1913: .

“Cinema Machines: At Work at Liberty Hall: An Unrehearsed Picture.” Evening Telegraph 25 Oct. 1913: 5.

“Liberty Hall: A Footnote to History: Harmonies and Discords.” Dublin Evening Mail 21 Oct. 1913: 2.

“An Objectionable Class from the City”

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“One aspect of the strike which has probably not been brought home to the public,” begins a tantalizing article in the Evening Herald on 18 October 1913, “is the effect which it has had upon the amusements of Dublin, such as theatres, music halls, and cinematograph shows” (“Dublin Theatres and the Strike”). Despite offering the views of prominent – albeit unnamed and paraphrased – theatre, music hall and cinema managers, the almost 700-words that follow are, if intriguing, also finally frustratingly unspecific. This is not because as a newspaper owned by employers’ leader William Martin Murphy, the Herald missed few opportunities to point out the folly of Dublin’s striking workers, who had been, it often argued, criminally led astray by union leader Jim Larkin. There are traces of that editorial line here, but the real disappointment is that the writer appears misleadingly to conceive each of these entertainments as being entirely identified with a single class. This, then, looks gratifyingly like a suitable case for analysis and supplement.

The article starts soundly enough by observing that the Lockout affected the city’s entertainments in general in two ways:

firstly, that inasmuch as the earning capacity of some thousands of men has been stopped, therefore their spending capacity has likewise been curtailed.

Secondly, that where the earnings have not been interfered with, among those who are not directly concerned with the strike, yet who live some considerable way from the city, they have been unable to patronise the various entertainments provided for their amusement owing to the difficulties of travel consequent upon the curtailment of the tramway programme (ibid).

A large number of workers with severely reduced income and restrictions on public transport were undoubtedly key factors affecting audience numbers, but the article is less convincing in the argument it makes about the identification of entertainments with particular classes.

It implies that theatre provided entertainment for the social elite, music halls catered for the middle class, and cinema was for the working class. This is done by showing that not all types of entertainment were equally affected by the Lockout. The theatres “have done comparatively well, and the manager of one important theatre stated that had it not been for the strike he would have eclipsed all records” (ibid). Music halls, by contrast,

had suffered considerably, the seats of these houses, whilst altogether more expensive than those of cinematograph shows were cheaper than those of the theatres, so that whereas the man who would pay three or four shillings for a seat at the theatre would and could afford the cost of a conveyance to and from his residence[, t]he man who came from the outlying parts could not, and it is too far to walk a couple of miles each way (ibid).

The difference in ticket prices here seems to create a rigidly stratified system. Stratification based on price, class and type of entertainment certainly existed but not in the way implied here. It is too much of a simplification to state that theatregoers were substantially of a class that could in the absence of trams due to the strike, afford private transport or a cab, while music hall patrons were from a class that lived in the suburbs (to a degree that severely impacted on the business of music halls) but could not afford to pay both for admission and transport home. But the argument become particularly problematic in relation to cinema.

Although the article seems to suggest that the cinematograph shows were competing with music halls for audience, it only discusses picture houses as working-class venues:

In the poorer parts of the city where the cheaper cinematograph shows abound, these have been directly affected by the loss of custom consequent upon those who patronise them being strikers, and therefore, not earning any money. Some of these have suffered severely, and their owners and managers will be very pleased when the strike is settled (ibid).

Certainly the business of picture houses located in working-class areas was affected by the Lockout, but which ones the writer had visited or was thinking of is unclear.

Map Oct 1913

Map of Dublin in 1913 with pins indicating locations of picture houses, music halls and theatres.

The controversy over the Sunday opening of picture houses suggested that going to the pictures was not just a working class entertainment. On 24 October 1913, the Recorder of Dublin – the city’s chief magistrate – considered an application for a Sunday music licence for the Dame Street Picture House, without which it could not open. From their previous applications in April and July 1913, the proprietors of the Dame Street Picture House knew the authorities’ views that the Grafton and O’Connell Street picture houses “were frequented by persons of the better class, and there was no necessity that they should be opened on Sundays for their benefit” (CSORP/1915/2211). As a result, the proprietors argued that the “people who frequented the Grafton street house were generally people who went shopping. The Dame street house was frequently largely by the working classes, and the object of the application was to give facilities to the working classes to attend performances on Sundays” (ibid). They classed themselves among the picture houses that were allowed to open on Sunday: the Phoenix Picture Palace, the Irish Cinema in Capel Street, the Dorset Picture Hall, the Camden Picture House, the Theatre de Luxe in Camden Street, the Picturedrome in Harcourt Road, the Brunswick Street Cinema, the Princess Cinema in Rathmines, the Mary Street Picture House, the Volta in Mary Street, the World’s Fair Varieties in Henry Street and the Electric Theatre in Talbot Street (ibid).

Dame Phoenix Sunday 1913

Ads for Sunday shows at Phoenix and, despite the Recorder’s ban, the Dame; Evening Telegraph 25 Oct. 1913: 4.

The Recorder did not accept this, contending that Dame Street was one of the city’s principal streets – “near the residence of the King’s representative” in Dublin Castle – and not located in a working-class district (“Picture Houses”). He therefore treated the picture house there as he did the ones in Grafton Street and O’Connell Street by refusing them a Sunday licence. “He would give every facility to Sunday entertainments for the working classes, but he would not, so far as he could prevent it, give up the principal streets to these syndicates on Sundays” (“Sunday Cinemas”).

The Recorder’s licensing session also considered local objections to Sunday shows at Clontarf Town Hall, one of the city’s latest picture houses to open – and so not listed above. When Clontarf was incorporated into an expanded Dublin at the turn of the century, the administrative powers of its local council were assumed by Dublin Corporation, and its town hall had no function. Beginning on 18 July 1913, the hall’s leasee George Humphreys ran it as a picture house, with the proviso that he give it up when the Corporation needed it. “Mr. Robertson, (who represented the police) said that he went to the petty Sessions at Clontarf the other day, and they were held in this picture show (laughter)” (“Clontarf Cinema”). Reverend John L. Morrow, chairman of the Clontarf Citizens’ Association objected to the renewal of the picture house’s licence on the basis that local people had not been consulted on its use for this purpose. He complained in particular that its Sunday shows “brought out an objectionable class from the city” (ibid). Humphreys dismissed this claim, observing that “the hall was patronised by people like Ald. Maguire, of Clontarf; Mr. Brady (solicitor), and many other representative and legal gentlemen” (ibid). By 1913, the picture house no longer provided entertainment only for the working class.

References

“Clontarf Cinema: Citizens’ Association: Raise an Objection.” Evening Telegraph 24 Oct. 1913: 3.

CSORP/1915/2211, National Archives of Ireland.

“Dublin Theatres and the Strike.” Evening Herald 18 Oct. 1913: 4.

“Picture Houses: And Licence for Sunday Shows.” Evening Herald 24 Oct. 1913: 2.

“Sunday Cinemas: In Leading Streets.” Evening Telegraph 24 Oct. 1913: 6.