Recently, I stumbled across a news report from June 1963. The News and Carton Cinema on Grafton Street were showing Elizabeth Is Queen, and during one screening a number of youths “jumped up on stage, sprayed the screen and then part of the audience with fire extinguishers threw a bottle of ink at the screen, slashed it, and ran out of a side exit and escaped.”
This attack on the screening of a Royal film in Dublin was by no means the first attack of its kind in the history of the city. Indeed, in the 1920s and 30s such political attacks were rather common. Some films were not shown at all here, with a belief existing that they could lead to scenes of protest. As noted in Cinema and Ireland, when the American-produced Indian Raj film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) was first screened here:
Rupert Brooke’s provocative poem ‘England, My England’ was removed, while ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ was substituted for ‘God Save the Queen’. Indeed, it was also deemed wise not to screen the George V celebration film, Royal Cavalcade (1935)
The primary reason republicans choose to attack particular films and cinemas in the 1920s and 1930s was a belief that in showing films which glorified war, or the British Royals, there were pushing an imperialist agenda. This was all part of a wider campaign of course, occurring at the same time when the republican movement was waging street protests against Remembrance Sunday and other such events. As Brian Hanley has written:
Beginning in 1925, when the Masterpiece cinema in Dublin was blown up for showing ‘imperialist’ films, British Legion premises, scout halls and monuments to English monarchs were all targeted. IRA units were also instructed to make off with any Union flags that were prominently displayed in their areas.
News coverage of 1925 bombing of Masterpiece Cinema (Irish Times)
The 1925 bombing of the Masterpiece cinema grabbed national headlines, with The Irish Times of 21 November 1925 reporting that:
At seven o’clock yesterday morning three men exploded a powerful landmine in the wide entrance to the Masterpiece cinema in Talbot Street, Dublin. The explosion blew out a large portion of the front of the building, and wrecked the glass in nearly a score of houses in the street.
Soon after this incident, it was reported that two plain clothes police officers were fired upon in the area. This story played out for a long time afterwards in the courts and the national media, with the Corporation paying out considerable compensation to the damaged cinema and other businesses in the area. The Masterpiece cinema had previously been called upon by armed men, who had seized seven of its eight copies of the film The Battle of Ypres. Below we see some footage from the original 1925 version of the film.
Two years later, there were nationwide scenes of protest when Mons was shown, which republicans believed glorified the first World War. In Dundalk, it was reported that armed youths raided the Oriel Cinema and “seized and burned nearly all reels” of the film, while the film was greeted by hostile audiences in Limerick and the capital.
Throughout the 1930s, Royal films in Dublin were greeted by hostility from republicans. In December 1934 footage of a recent Royal wedding was enough to create scenes of violent disorder in the Savoy Cinema on O’Connell Street, when a gang of about fifty rushed a screening, while shouting about imperialism. Ink was thrown upon the screen, and several youths tore at it, damaging the bottom half. The matter was raised in the Dáil, with Richard Mulcahy asking “Is the Minister aware that this is not the first occasion on which an organised attack of this particular kind, organised by a body known to the Minister, has taken place?”
In May 1935, the Bohemian Picture House in Phibsboro was bombed, with the manager of that cinema later noting that he had witnessed posters being pasted around the city warning cinemas not to show particular films, though no such films were being shown there at the time.
Royal films continued to cause upset, and in December 1947 a letter bomb arrived at the Carton Cinema on O’Connell Street, with newspapers noting that “there is little doubt that the explosion was staged as a protest against the exhibition of the film of the Royal wedding, which was shown for the last time on Wednesday night.”
These attacks on Dublin cinemas are only a part of a much longer story. Labour disputes, international politics and other factors would also cause scenes of protest and violence on occasion at Dublin cinemas, but this brief post has looked primarily at British loyalist films and their impact in the city. As an interesting aside, it’s worth noting that of these cinemas, only the Savoy remains opens today.
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Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
As ever, fascinating. Nice to be you!
..and on Wednesday, RTE will being showing “The King’s Speech” staring that boring, mono-thened actor Colin Firth. Relevance? The Republicans didn’t prevent British propaganda then or now. Our taxes given to RTE and they in turn transmit such rubbish; they be hard pushed to put out worse.
Pity the same gobshites didn’t get as exercised about Vatican propaganda. Things haven’t changed: the same type of idiots can see one enemy but not it’s far more poisonous competitor. The Brits marched out and Romans crawled in. This Friday the sheep will be parading through the Phoenix park up to that great big Vatican marker on the mound.
I think the idiots can’t see 800 yrs of oppression, incl genocide + ethnic cleansing of half Irel’s population of 8mio. As opposed to an oppressed majority church which maintained the social welfare, education + healthcare of a new republic. All that in the face of constant attack from internal forces.
Private education in Irel costs more than 5k a year. I’d love if all those who complain about their Catholic schooling would put their money where their mouth is and give The Church. Euro 70k for the 14 year of primary and secondry education. Back in the day they had a choice……don’t go to a cathlic run school and attend the Protestant one. Every county had Protestant schools and Dublin was full of them.
Papel cross in Phoenix Pk is a memorial to a Mass attended by a million. Maybe first take down all the British symbols throout Dublin which represneted colonialism, the greatest crime of 19 + early 20th centuary. Last census showed 83 percent population of Irel is Catholic – FACT. Common knowledge shows 100 of oppression of Irish upto and incl 20 centuary is by Brits and West Brits – FACT enought for this site + thread.
Pipe, smoke it, put in ! Advice offered in mode easiest for u to understand…got things backwards!!!!!!!!
Typical: the oul “800 years of oppression” crap. The Church breeds it’s clones well. The Roman Catholic Church has never done anything that was not aimed at benefiting the Roman Catholic Church. They colonised the education systems to where they now control 92% of the schools all aimed at perpetuating a foreign organisation run by sinister child abusing male virgins in Rome. In that system they breed traitors like Bertie and Woods who covered their child rape bills with the Indemnity Deal. The Irish state pays them for this disservice! Where they might have to finally surrender a few of the schools (that we paid for) they want to be paid again! That’s a FACT! That banner over Liberty Hall should have read “Serve neither King, Kaiser Nor Pope” but nobody had the vision or the balls to go that far. This country has been paying the price ever since 1922. The wonderful education system run by Rome has produced small minded clowns who’ve managed to bankrupt the country while paying themselves more than politicians in the rest of the world.
Well said, FXR.
But you’ll never get through to morons like Niall. His kind have been keeping Ireland poor and repressed for 91 years…
In 1870 30% of landlords in Ireland were Catholics: FACT
Thousands of Irish Protestants died in the Famine: FACT
Hundreds of thousands of Irish Protestants emigrated in the 1700 and 1800s: FACT
Irish republicanism was founded by Irish Protestants: FACT
The Catholic Church supported British rule: FACT
Their reward was control of schools and hospitals: FACT
Anyone who uses the term ‘west brit’ is a moron: FACT
1-5 are common knowledge but anyways…
1) partly because absentee British landlords had been taxed by Westminister to fund the too-little too-late relief for the starving. They sold out to loval WestBrits of the day.
2) Obviously as most deaths during famine are from hunger origining dieases. Dthese deases don’t have a religious preference.
3) They be the ancestorss of millions of USA’s Scotch Irish…..relevance??
4) Republicanism based on Catholic, Protestaism + Dissenter…..what’s that to do w Papel Crosses in Phoenix Pk?
5) They also worked and helped the poor. Broad church also translated as catholic church……
All the above would be such a relief to those evicted, starving and ethnic cleasned onto Coffin Ships.
West Brit was first used by Daniel OConnell and it’s the perfect term to describe Shoneen and Castle Catholics.
I also use it when discussing The Britification of Ireland, esp Dublin, during the horrible Celtic Tiger bubble years.
If u want to throw insults around, I can do that too?
A lot of Jews helped organize the clearing of the ghettos in Nederlands. So based on your “rationale” the Nazis weren’t to blame for The Holocast.
Godwins is only relevant when it can’t be argued…ethnic clensing + death of million means ….moot.
It was blacks who hunted and caught other blacks in jungle for slave traders for American plantations so ur “rationale” absolves Der Weiss Mann??
John A Murphy. Peter ‘brit at’ Hart or Ruth ‘the dud’ Edwards…take ur pick.
West brit was a term invented by repressed middle class Catholics, people who had never even been to Galway, to idealise the mythical Gaelic Irishman of the west (most of whom wanted to get to London or New York as quick as they could) as a term of abuse to describe working class Dubs who read English papers and followed soccer.
Why does the Catholic church have such a fantastic record of child abuse?
I never mentioned the Nazis or ethnic cleansing, but Hitler was a Catholic now i think of it.
Brits to blame for the Celtic Tiger as well? I thought our rich started buying up their hotels in London?
Have you ever read a history book or are do they allow them in your padded cell?
“….working class Dubs who read English papers and followed soccer”
So wrong in so many ways. West Brit was an admiring, accepting term used by DOC as a counter to the ham-fisted, intorerant behaviour of Westminster. Look it up. You are so far from fact on your first sentance that I think you are v stupid and I don’t even think u r from Ireland.
Middle class these days are the ones who rush towards the Sky-TV + yet Sunday Times life style. They “fumble in the greasy till” and hung out in smelly, hashish Galway in their youth as a disply of free spirit. Galway City is full of wankers. It’d fall into the Atlantic if it wasn’t for Dublin garnered grants.
I never wrote Brits were to blame for Celtic Tiger – do you not bother to read whats written, incapable or too blind + stupid?
Irish hero, of course, ignored by the Dublin liberal mejjia….
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_O%27Flaherty#section_2