The magnetic pull toward cinemas worldwide hasn’t been stronger in recent memory than during the post-pandemic phenomenon of ‘Barbenheimer’ [Barbie and Oppenheimer] in the summer of 2023. The social media-fuelled hype resulted in real-world ticket sales and a collective sigh of relief for the film industry after a rocky number of years.
Cillian Murphy, the Oscar-winning lead of the more sombre film, remains in the business of getting bums on plush velour seats, but now as the owner of the Phoenix in Dingle, the cinema he bought with his wife, artist Yvonne McGuinness, in 2024.
In screenwriting, once the protagonist establishes their goal, the writer creates obstacles in their path; this has also been the case for Murphy and McGuinness, who have had appeals lodged against a grant of permission for their refurbishment of the cinema that Murphy visited as a child.
An Coimisiún Pleanála is due to decide on the appeal by the end of July, so it remains to be seen how the story will end. However, if the romantic idea of reviving an old cinema in a town near you appeals – and you have some investment cash to spare – there are opportunities to invest.
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A number of small cinemas are for sale around Ireland, including the Regal in Youghal, Co Cork; Slaney Plaza in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford; the Astor in Scarriff, Co Clare and the old Dara Cinema complex in Naas, Co Kildare.
These buildings require extensive renovation work – whether that be to reinstate them as cinemas or to convert them to another use – all of them, that is, except the Regal, which was refurbished in 2017 to its 1936 glory and was still functioning as a cinema until recent months, with passersby still being wished a Merry Christmas on the marquee sign outside.
The Regal stands as an example of how a small cinema can be refurbished to a high standard, employing a moody-blue colour scheme and art deco flourishes, as well as adding a wine bar for refreshments. Much like the popular Stella Cinema in Rathmines, Dublin, it boasts the type of grandeur that makes going to the cinema something of an event to get dressed up for.
The Regal is currently on the market with an asking price of €295,000, selling through Hegarty Properties. It was originally listed with a price tag of €600,000 in 2024, but was relisted in February at the current asking price – a reduction of more than 50 per cent – with the selling agent citing the cinema’s closure in January as the reason for the reduction, saying that there were “no trading figures” available to prospective buyers.
The cinema was bought by Irish property developer Redbarn Construction in 2016 for €90,000, and the outfit reportedly invested €500,000 in the refurbishment. The company was involved in a housing development nearby when the cinema for sale was spotted.
“We thought it would be a great community thing to buy it and restore [it] to the finest detail, to protect its vast heritage and history, while adapting it to suit contemporary tastes and habits,” Redbarn’s David O’Rourke said following the cinema’s reopening in 2017.
It brings to mind the closure of the Pálás arthouse cinema in Galway city.
In December 2024, the Light House Cinema Group, owned by Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe of Element Pictures, said it had made “the difficult decision” to shut down after “months of engagement” with Galway City Council, the Department of Culture, the Western Development Commission and Screen Ireland.
“Regrettably, no viable alternative funding solution has been identified at this time, and this leaves us with no option but to close the doors,” the company said.
The company invested €1.5 million in Pálás Cinema in 2018 and brought 3,000 independent films to the city. Since the original investment, the Light House Group said the cinema had incurred losses of more than €1.8 million and had been incurring losses of about €250,000 a year.
“Rising costs, the impact of Covid and the oversaturation of commercial cinemas in the Galway area have all contributed to the situation that is faced today,” it said in December 2024.
“The [cinema] business has changed dramatically from the huge single-screen cinemas in the 1940s and 1950s to the luxury stadium-seated multiple-screen complexes of today, with projection systems changed from mechanical celluloid analogue projectors to totally digital projection systems,” says Noel Keane, an associate of cinema mogul Tom Anderson, owner of the Astor Cinema on the main street in Scariff.
Occupying a site of more than half an acre, the building, formerly a cinema and dance hall, is on the market with an asking price of €290,000, selling through Mannix Property Services.
“The audience, too, has changed,” Keane adds, with trends moving away from going to the cinema on a weekly basis no matter what was on, to having more choice across the board – be that in cinemas as well as across an array of streaming platforms.
Eoin O’Hagan, a gaffer [lighting technician] in the film industry who lives in Scariff, is part of “a loose association of people rather than a formalised group” at this stage, that want to bring the Astor to the community and turn it into a theatre space.
“It was the heart of the town and as we know the night-time economy around Ireland is dying, pubs are closing and the only time you see people in Scariff at night-time is when there’s an event on that’s run by volunteers,” he says.
“We have spoken to Clare County Council and were hoping that they might purchase it for us and give it to the community. We have made a couple of attempts at that, but they haven’t bitten so far,” he says.
Although it would likely cost a great deal in grant money to refurbish the Astor, the Mountmellick Arts Centre in Co Laois shows it can be done.
[ Appeals lodged against Cillian Murphy and Yvonne McGuinness’s cinema refurb planOpens in new window ]
The building that is now the arts centre opened as a cinema in 1951 – with a showing of the mystery The Clouded Yellow, starring Jean Simmons and Trevor Howard – and later closed its doors in the early-1990s following a drop in attendance during the preceding decade.
Ger Lynch, who was working as a supervisor at Fás at the time, was part of a voluntary committee set up in the early 2000s to save the building from dereliction. It secured grants from the Ireland Fund, Leader Funding, Laois Partnership and Laois County Council, and sponsorship from the local Credit Union to allow for the extensive refurbishment.
The works included replacing the asbestos roof, renovating the toilets, installing a lift, reupholstering seats and refurbishing the main entrance. As well as an impressive 448-seat theatre, home to Mountmellick Drama Group and visiting performers – Christy Moore and Phil Coulter among them, Lynch notes – the new building features a 138-seat cinema called the Balcony Theatre, where Lynch, now retired, and fellow volunteer Michael Feely organise a film showing weekly.
Elsewhere in Laois, the old Savoy cinema on the Market Square in Portarlington – which was featured in the 1992 film Into the West – has been purchased by the council, with tentative plans for it to become an Enterprise Centre, providing office space to small businesses. It is part of the regeneration plan of the town’s central square and sits alongside the Manor House, a former garage, which has been refurbished with Government funding, and turned into a modern community centre.
It is undoubtedly difficult to make a profit running a small cinema in Ireland, especially when competing with multiplex chains and at-home streamers. Those in large cities seem to fare well, though, such as the Strand in Belfast, which has just celebrated its 90th anniversary, and the Stella in Rathmines, which Time Out named the second-best cinema in the world.
A further shot of optimism comes in the form of a recent US-based survey that found Gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – are the most frequent cinemagoers, with 87 per cent saying they have seen at least one film in a cinema in the past 12 months. In the Fandango survey of 5,000 moviegoers, Gen Z was also found to go more often than other cohorts, averaging about seven trips a year.
Maybe the niche attraction of so-called traditional media will continue to attract younger generations eager to swap their hand-held screens for the silver one, but for now, cinephiles can live in hope. Meanwhile, all eyes will be on Murphy and McGuinness’s aptly named Phoenix venture, to see if they can make the small-town cinema rise again.
Cinemas for sale
Regal Cinema, Friar Street, Youghal, Co Cork
€295,000, Hegarty Property
Extending to 439sq m (4,725sq ft), this fully refurbished cinema has three screens: one with 133 seats and a mezzanine, one with 63 seats and one fitted out as a function room. It also has a bar on the first floor and is in ideal condition to be reopened.
The Astor Cinema Complex, Main Street, Scarriff, Co Clare
€290,000, Mannix Property Services
The Astor Cinema building occupies a site of more than half an acre and comprises an old dance hall and cinema space as well as an adjoining residence and vacant site to the rear. It would require extensive renovations to bring it back to use.
Former Dara Cinema, Naas Shopping Mall, Naas, Co Kildare
€1.5m, O’Neill & Co
Unlike the smaller offerings, the old Dara cinema building and mall is extensive and offers 1,077sq m (11,593sq ft) of mixed-use space over two levels on the town’s main street. It has parking for 15 cars to the rear.
Slaney Plaza, Templeshannon, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford
€300,000, Sherry FitzGerald O’Leary Kinsella
Extending to 1,016 sqm (10,936sq ft) this large plaza has three screen rooms and a specious lobby in Enniscorthy town centre. The building offers potential but requires extensive modernisation.
