ON APRIL 17, 1949, the Cabra Grand Cinema on Quarry Road was formally opened.
The Lord Mayor of Dublin, John Breen, opened the 1,600 seat picture house by cutting a tricolour ribbon with a pair of gold scissors. The cinema was designed by Samuel Lyons, and in a move that captured the spirit of the time, the building was blessed by a priest from the nearby Christ the King Church in Cabra.
After the formalities, the comedy
‘Sitting Pretty’ was shown. The first two films listed at the cinema in newspaper advertisements both featured Maureen O’Hara, and the cinema boasted that it was
“equipped with the latest RCA sound system
?, to give cinema goers a top class experience.
?
The first manager of the cinemas was Louis Marie, an interesting individual who had seen action during the revolutionary period. Marie had been a member of the Fianna Ã?ireann republican boy scout organisation, and took part in the Easter Rising in 1916.
His name appears in a few of the statements given by participants in the Rising to the Bureau of Military History. Gearoid Ua h-Uallachain, who took part in the attack on the Phoenix Park magazine fort at the beginning of the rebellion, noted that
“Louis Marie, manager of a picture-house, was among those involved.
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Just over a year after opening, there were very ugly scenes at Cabra’s cinema, which saw shots fired by Gardaà over the heads of a reactionary mob.
Two women had to seek refuge in the cinema, after they had attracted the scorn of hundreds of local people. They had been going door to door with a
“peace petition
? calling for the banning of the atomic bomb, and residents believed them to be members of a communist organisation. The Irish Press reported that a hostile crowd of nearly 1,000 people surrounded the cinema and threatened the two women.
“Weapons brandished and thrown included sticks, stones, bricks and bottles. One Garda, as he was pushing through the shouting and jostling mass, was struck by a brick in the back, but was not seriously injured,
? the report reads.
There was more drama at the cinema in 1953 when it was held up by two men armed with what appeared to be a pistol. At the time of the robbery the cinema was showing
‘The Apparition’, a religious film, which was being screened as a fundraiser for the African Missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers.
By the late 1950s, television was the big fear for the owners of Dublin’s suburban cinemas. Many of Dublin’s suburban cinemas closed their doors throughout the 1960s and 70s, but others took on a new lease of life as centres of their communities.
Jim Keenan notes in his study of Dublin cinemas that
“by the late 1960s, the Grand has become economically unviable and it closed on January 32, 1970.
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The last film shown was The Big Gundown. The Cabra cinema was purchased by Gael Linn in 1975, and like other suburban Dublin cinemas, it became both a bingo hall and a concert venue.
The old Cabra cinema witnessed a number of celebrated, and in some cases infamous, rock concerts. Indeed, the behaviour of some youngsters after one gig in 1980 led to a Dublin District Court decision that no more rock concerts could be held in the cinema.
One source blamed the violence on a
“Mod and Skinhead element in Cabra who are always fighting among themselves.
?
Four stabbings were reported after the legendary US punk band The Ramones played the venue. However, Joe Breen, a journalist with The Irish Times, rushed to the defence of the cinema by noting that the trouble had not only taken place after the gig, but had happened far from the venue.
Siouxsie and the Banshees played Cabra soon afterwards in 1980. That year was a good one for gigs at the venue, with Duran Duran also playing.
Fifteen years later, Boyzone took to the stage of the old cinema before a crowd of well over 1,000 young fans, with one reviewer noting that
“the bingo machine could be partially seen lying behind the curtain.
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Today, the old cinema remains very much a part of the community around it, with regular bingo nights drawing huge crowds.
?¢ Donal Fallon’s latest book
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