Theatre Royal - Hawkins Street

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/

Now that I've calmed down from last week's post, let's have a look back at the history of the Theatre Royal which occupied the site on Hawkins Street before Hawkins House. There have been several Theatre Royals: the first was opened on Smock Alley in 1662, and closed in 1787. In 1820 Henry Harris bought this site on Hawkins Street, close to Trinity College, and built a 2,000 seater theatre which he also named the Theatre Royal. The building was designed by architect Samuel Beazley at a cost of £50,000 and opened on the 18th January 1821. This theatre saw performances from such performers as Jenny Lind and Paganini, but sadly burned to the ground in 1880.

The theatre in the picture above was then built on the site and opened in 1897. It staged pantomime and variety shows, with a notable performance from a young Charlie Chaplin in 1906. This building was demolished in 1934.

A third Theatre Royal (right) was erected, again on the same site, and opened on 23rd September 1935. This huge Art Deco building had room for over 3,000 patrons in its lavishly decorated Moorish-style interior. The orchestra pit was built on a special electric lift so that it could ascend to stage level with the touch of a button.

Due to its massive size the proprietors needed to book star names to attract the necessary audiences, and the theatre played host to performers such as Gracie Fields, George Formby, Jimmy Durante and Judy Garland.

Despite their best efforts however, the theatre was in the main a loss-making business. With the increased competition from full-time cinemas and television making the business unviable, the Theatre Royal finally closed its doors on 30th June 1962. It was demolished and in its place was built Hawkins House.

The additional images in this post have been reproduced by kind permission of Matthew Lloyd of arthurlloyd.co.uk.

Theatre Royal/Hawkins House - Hawkins Street

I've created quite a few of these now and then pictures at this stage. Never before though have I been so close to real tears as when putting this one together. The building on the right is Hawkins House, home to the Department of Health and Children. To put it bluntly, this is the single biggest eyesore in Dublin. Looking like something Soviet-era Moscow would have rejected as being too grim, it stubbornly fails to confine itself to Hawkins Street, looming up as it does over surrounding buildings and being visible from not only Pearse Street but from across the river on the quays opposite.

Hawkins House was built in the early 1960s and has upset thousands of Dubliners every day since. It was designed by architect Sir Thomas Bennett, who seems to have been a serial offender. It topped a 1998 poll by Archiseek to find the worst building in Dublin, and I think that result would still hold true today.

Ironically for the Department of Health building, it has been described as one of the least healthy workplaces in Ireland, with steel windows which don't open, and rumours of asbestos abounding.

At the height of the boom Hawkins House was due for demolition and the Department was to be rehoused elsewhere. However these plans do not seem to have gone any further, and in the (brace for cliché) current economic climate it's hard to imagine it will. We're stuck with this abomination for the foreseeable future then.

I've ranted for an entire post and I haven't even mentioned the Theatre Royal! That will have to go up in a separate blog next week.

References:
EAS_1700, National Photographic Archive
Irish Times, 28 November 1964
Irish Times, 9 September 2007 

Eglinton Street - Galway

Ireland's turbulent history ensures that many now innocuous streets and buildings were often the site of dramatic events. Eglinton Street, Galway, is one such site. Today it is a main road leading from the Salmon Weir Bridge and the river Corrib through to Eyre Square. However, on 2 July 1922 (around twenty years after the image on the left was taken) it was witness to a revolutionary act of arson.

Eglinton Street was at the time home to an army barracks. As people made their way to Mass on that Sunday, word began to spread that the barracks was on fire. Alarmed, some made their way to see what was happening. Indeed the barracks was ablaze, and more reports began to arrive that the barracks at Renmore and at the Naval Base at the Galway docks. Clearly, this was no accident. Luckily the calm weather ensured that the fire was mostly contained to the barracks, which were gutted.

A garda barracks was built on the site, and this remained in state hands until 1988, when it was sold on.

References:
EAS_2175, National Photographic Archive
Galway Observer (8 July 1922)
Dáil Éireann Debates Vol. 381, No. 1 (25 May 1988)

The Big Tree Pub - Dorset Street

Back to regular business this week after last week's focus on cinemas. Dorset Street runs north east from Bolton Street and stretches up towards Drumcondra. The road then continues on to the airport and M1 motorway, making Dorset Street a main route from the city centre to north county Dublin and indeed Northern Ireland. It lies in an area rich with Georgian architecture, some sadly neglected; Gardiner Street and Henrietta Street lie off Dorset Street. While some Georgian buildings survive, much of the street was rebuilt in the late nineteenth century.

The light coloured corner building on the right of these pictures is the Big Tree pub, a Dorset Street fixture and well known to visitors to nearby Croke Park. One of the oldest pubs in the city, there has allegedly been a tavern on this site since 1453. Formerly known as the Rose Tavern, the current name derives from an incident during the 1798 Rebellion when five rebels were hanged outside the tavern where they were caught. The tree they were hanged from became known as the Big Tree and eventually the pub adopted its name.

In the nineteenth century the building also housed the Petty Sessions Courthouse for Drumcondra, and part of that structure still lies in the basement of the current premises.

References:

EAS_1674, National Photographic Archive

Cinema Week - Ambassador Cinema

The Ambassador is located in part of the former Rotunda Rooms, adjacent to the Rotunda Hospital. These rooms were not part of the main maternity hospital, but rather were public function rooms used for fundraising activities and other social events. In 1897 it hosted its first 'moving picture' event, and moved into business as a full-time cinema in 1908. Throughout its long lifetime it showed hundreds of films, the most popular being Oliver!, which ran for a staggering 68 weeks beginning in 1968. 

It was redesigned in the 1950s, which increased its capacity to 1200. The 1970s and 1980s were a patchy time for the establishment, with changes of ownership and temporary closings. It closed in 1988, only to be given a second chance in 1994 when it was reopened as part of the Ward Anderson chain. It was, however, too late for the Ambassador, and it closed for good on 27 September 1999. It was Dublin's longest running cinema. 

It was used for several years as a music venue but of late it has hosted exhibitions such as Bodies. The picture on the left, above, shows a World War I plane on the roof of the building to advertise the film The Blue Max (see the trailer below).

Many thanks for reading this week - I may do another special cinema series later in the year!

References:

Left: G.A. Duncan

Jim Keenan, Dublin Cinemas: A Pictorial Selection

Cinema Week - Drumcondra Grand

Tesco seem to have cornered the market in taking over old cinema premises. Earlier this week we saw the Fairview Grand, and today we have a very similar cinema in the Drumcondra Grand. Situated on Upper Drumcondra Road, 'the Drummer' as it was known locally was part of Leonard Ging's chain of cinemas. It too was opened by Alfie Byrne, this time in October 1934.

There were a massive 1200 seats in the venue. In the days before television sets in every home, cinema was a major source of entertainment and Dublin supported an incredible 56 cinemas as of 1956. By 2005 this had fallen to 12 cinemas, many of which are multiplex venues. In the heyday of Dublin cinemas they were generally single screen theatres.

The Drummer closed in March 1968, another casualty of the advent of home-based audiovisual entertainment.

Tomorrow: Ambassador Cinema

References:
Left: G.A. Duncan
Jim Keenan, Dublin Cinemas: A Pictorial Selections

Cinema Week - La Scala/Capitol Theatre

The alley on the right is one thousands of people walk past every day. Prince's Street North lies between Penneys and the GPO on O'Connell Street, and ends in the entrance to Arnott's carpark. The GPO Arcade also runs off to the right through the blue archway onto Henry Street, creating a shortcut for pedestrians. Prince's Street was to become a main thoroughfare for the now stalled Northern Quarter redevelopments plans. For the foreseeable future though, Prince's Street will remain as it is, a rather dead-ended and overlooked street.

This wasn't always the case. In August 1920 a brand new and glamorous venue opened here, the La Scala Theatre. Originally meant to be an opera house, the theatre was designated as a cinema at a late stage of its planning. It sat 1900 patrons, and was lavishly decorated with wood panelling salvaged during a refurbishment of the RMS Mauretania. The venue also ran variety shows. In 1927 it changed hands and its name became the Capitol.

La Scala also witnessed a significant moment in modern Irish history when it played host to the inaugural meeting of the Fianna Fail political party in March 1926. A plaque now marks where the theatre stood to mark this fact. You might even say it was the first of many horror shows the cinema would be involved in.

The Capitol cinema closed in 1972.

Tomorrow: The Drumcondra Grand

References: 
Left: Irish Times Archive 
Jim Keenan, Dublin Cinemas: A Pictorial Selection (2005)

Cinema Week - Fairview Grand

The Fairview Grand was founded by World War I veteran Leonard Ging, who would go on to establish a chain of cinemas around Dublin with his partners Patrick Whelan and Joseph Lyons. This cinema was opened in November 1929 by Senator Alfie Byrne, after whom a nearby road is named. In its early days neighbourhood children could apparently barter admission by bringing two large jam jars with them to a show!

Like other small cinemas in Dublin, Fairview suffered from the advent of television, with attendances dwindling from the 1960s onwards. The Fairview Grand lasted longer than most though, staying opening until the early 1990s. The screen was used for a time by Buena Vista Ireland for movie preview screenings, but it seems to have fallen into disuse. The ground floor has been occupied by a Tesco Express for the last year or so.

Tomorrow: La Scala/Capitol Theatre

References:

Left: G.A. Duncan

Jim Keenan, Dublin Cinemas: A Pictorial Selection (2005)

Cinema Week - The Volta, Mary Street

This week I'm going to take a look at a different historic cinema in Dublin every day, kicking off with the first full-time cinema to be established in Dublin, the Volta on Mary Street. Believe it or not - it was founded by James Joyce.

Joyce had encountered picture houses during time spent in Trieste, and on his return to Dublin was determined to open a cinema in Dublin. With the backing of some Italian friends, he took over a former ironmongers at 45 Mary Street as the site for this enterprise. The Cinematograph Volta opened in December 1909 with 420 seats, showing mainly European films. 

Unfortunately for Joyce, Dubliners were perhaps not ready for such sophisticated fare, and the cinema suffered from poor attendances. He withdrew himself from the business after just seven months, but the Volta limped on until 1947, changing hands several times and changing its name to the Lyceum Picture Theatre in 1921. The Volta building was later entirely demolished, and Penneys have occupied this site since the late 1960s. However in 2007 a plaque was unveiled there to signify its importance in the history of Irish cinema.

NB) This week's posts owe a great deal to an excellent book, Jim Keenan's Dublin Cinemas: A Pictorial Selection (2005), which is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in further reading on this topic.

Tomorrow: The Fairview Grand

References:

Left: Irish Film Archive, via NLI

Jim Keenan, Dublin Cinemas: A Pictorial Selection (2005)