Come Here To Me!

The story of the dispute between the owner of the Forum Cinema in Dun Laoghaire and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in 1979 is a fascinating one.

On November 19 1979, Barney O’Reilly went on hungerstrike with the intention of drawing public attention to a dispute involving his cinema and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

The Irish Press reported that Mr.O’Reilly had told them he would “neither eat nor open the door until he had the choice to run his cinema as a non-union house. After the film was run in the cinema last night he locked the door to begin his protest.”

O’Reilly had been in dispute with the No.7 branch of the union, with members of the union refusing to co-operate with him. The first film due to be shown in his brand new cinema was Kelly’s Heroes which was distributed by M.G.M, but I.T.G.W.U members inside M.G.M’s dispatch department refused to handle a film intended to be shown in the Forum Cinema, owing to O’Reilly’s anti-union policies. The Irish Times noted O’Reilly had to replace the planned film with The Trials Of Oscar Wilde at short notice.

The Irish Times report at the start of O’Reilly’s hunger strike noted that he had spent £25,000 on renovating the cinema, formerly the Astoria, and that he intended to use a small-skeleton staff, unpaid and consisting mainly of family members for the first three months following opening.

Patrons who arrived at the cinema to see Kelly’s Heroes were met by a sign informing them that because of “victimisation and intimidation by the Irish Transport and General Workers Union” the film could not be shown. The union had blacklisted the cinema until O’Reilly agreed to employ union labour.

An I.T.G.W.U spokesperson told newspapers at the time that their letter to O’Reilly had gone unresponded to, a letter in which they informed him that they represented cinema workers in the Dublin and Bray areas. Members of the union who had been working in The Forum cinema installing automated equipment then withdrew their labour.

I.T.G.W.U members at other cinemas in Dublin had engaged in radical action in the 1970s, for example the sit-in protests which occurred at both the Ambassador and Academy Cinemas in 1977 with the announcement of the closure of those two cinemas. Earlier, in 1973, a strike of 300 I.T.G.W.U workers against Odeon Ltd. had closed nine cinemas in Dublin and Bray.

The hunger strike went on for a number of days. The Irish Press noted that on the fifth day of the strike O’Reilly was visited by a doctor who advised him to end his fast, and it was upon the advice of this doctor that O’Reilly thankfully ended his five day hunger strike. He told The Irish Press that his 120-hour fast had led to “other people and organisations getting involved” and brought public attention to his cause.

The Forum cinema is no longer with us, demolished in the summer of 2002, having closed in 1999. It was a small, two-screen cinema, and sadly many such cinemas would lose out in the days of the new multiplex outlets. As Justin Comiskey wrote in The Irish Times at the time of the Forum’s closure: ‘Small cinemas are dead, long live the multiplexes. That would appear to be the message following the closure of The Forum in Glasthule four weeks ago, leaving two small independent cinemas in Dublin.’

I’d be interested in hearing more from people about relations between the I.T.G.W.U and The Forum cinema following this dispute.

On a sidenote, some of you may remember a recent piece on this site from jaycarax which looked at a Dublin industrial dispute which lasted fourteen years. It occurred in Dun Laoghaire too, at Downey’s Pub.

The question above is posed by Shane MacThomais, historian at Glasnevin cemetery. Shane contacted me with this image and the information below, and I’m sharing here in the hope someone can provide an answer either way. The photograph relates to the Dublin Main Drainage Scheme, and Shane details some of the characters in the photograph below. What about the man second on the left? Connolly did work on the scheme in the 1890s, could this be him? The man certainly bares more than some resemblance to Connolly.

Beyond the boots on the man second from right, the men do not appear in what I would deem workman’s attire, but if there is a foreman or labourer among the pile who knows.

Regardless, read Shane’s information below on ‘Altman The Saltman’, ‘Long John Clancy’ and the Dublin Main Drainage Scheme and then give the photo a close look.

By the middle of the 19th century Dublin Rivers like the Camac, Poddle and Liffey became seriously polluted. Several proposals were put forward in the mid to late 19th Century to mitigate this problem, but it was only in 1886 that the Main Drainage Scheme for Dublin City commenced, involving the construction of the North and South Quay interceptor sewers and the Ringsend treatment plant, the latter being completed in 1906.

When this work was completed in 1906 the Dublin Corporation decided that such sterling work deserved a publication. The Dublin Main Drainage Scheme Souvenir Handbook was published in 1906 and is no doubt a riveting read for anyone interested in centriifugal pumps and the inlet pipes and the affects of silt. The book has an interesting chapter on the history of pollution in Dublin and has countless photographs of the city fathers under whose benevolent eyes this work was carried out.

Amongst the photographs is this one of a group at the commencement of the outfall works. In the photograph are Albert Altman better known as ‘Altman the Saltman” whose business in the liberties supplied salt and coal to the numerous public baths across Dublin at the turn of the 19th century. Alongside Messrs Altman is John Clancy known as “Long John Clancy” who steps in and out of many a James Joyce novel. But it is the man 2nd from the left who raises my curiosity. Could it be the man himself Mr. James Connolly? Connolly did work on the scheme in the late 1890s but is it him?

UPDATE: Lorcan Collins of the 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour has sent in this image of Connolly from 1894. He’s not convinced it’s Connolly above, and see his logic below in the comment section.