Remembering Ballyshannon a Town with 3 Cinemas! Those Were the Days.

Check out what films were showing this week in October 75 years ago in the Rock Cinema

Seventy five years ago the Cinema was the biggest all year round entertainment attraction in Ballyshannon. It is amazing to recall that there were 3 cinemas in town in the pre-television and pre-computer age. Check out what films were showing on this week in October 1945. The most popular film of the month would take many people by surprise today. Those were the days when the community went to the pictures regularly.

"Casablanca" and "Song of Bernadette"

The big films in  October 1945 were "Casablanca" which ran for 3 nights and "The Song of Bernadette" which ran for 6 nights. Normal admission prices were 1 shilling and four pence for the balcony which was a raised platform at the back of the hall, 9 pence and 4 pence. Children under 14 were not admitted to any late night performances under any circumstances.

"The Song of Bernadette" was the most popular film of the month of October and reflected the importance of religion at the time in the lives of the local people. It ran for 6 nights and the admission prices were increased. The film played to packed houses. Sundays were by far the most popular day for films with 3 showings at 3 p.m. 7 p.m. and 9.15 p.m. A shorter film was played before the main feature film and on October 4th the shorter film was on the inauguration of the President of Ireland. This would have been of special interest to locals as Sean T. O' Kelly the new President had opened the houses at East Rock and Falgarragh Park back in 1936. Many locals would have seen him in person at that stage. 

The First Cinemas-The Market Yard, The Rock, The Erne and The Abbey

  The Rock Hall today. In the cinema days the ticket hatch
was on the front of the building facing the road.

The Rock Hall as well as being a concert venue in the town was also the location of the town’s first permanent cinema. Films were shown earlier in venues, like the eggshed which was located in the centre of the Market Yard, by travelling film companies. The first cinema in town with projection equipment installed was the Rock Hall. John Sweeny of the Commercial Hotel, Major Myles, Paddy Crose and a few interested business people formed the Ballyshannon Cinema Company. They brought in an operator from Glasgow and the cinema played to packed houses, for some years, as people came to the Rock Hall from far and near. During the War of Independence the  Bracey Daniel’s Picture Company booked the Rock Hall annually at Easter and showed silent movies nightly. Bracey Daniels (1884-1956) is buried in St. Joseph’s cemetery close to the Rock Hall and is described on his gravestone as an “Irish Cinema Pioneer”.

By the 1930s the four penny matinee on a Sunday was the highlight of the week for young people in Ballyshannon. Mass in the morning and the ‘flicks’ in the afternoon with the Cisco Kid, Tom Mix, Buck Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and  Dale Evans. The patrons crammed into the hall, sitting on wooden benches, no backs, no arms and noisily greeted their heroes on screen in the ‘talkies’ which had replaced the silent movies. The arrival of the Erne Hydro-Electric Scheme brought great changes to cinema viewing in the town.

     The Abbey Arts Centre today is the focal point for arts events in
                     Ballyshannon. It opened as the Abbey Cinema in 1946. 
 (Image courtesy of Ailis McIntyre Abbey Arts Centre)

By 1946 two new cinemas opened in the town, The Abbey Cinema and the Erne Cinema

The former Erne Cinema today. The entrance was on West Port
just under the canopy where there is a window now.

During the Erne hydro-Electric Scheme in the 1940s the Erne Cinema was constructed beside the river Erne and was a massive attraction as it could hold hundreds of patrons. Today it is a shell of a building used as part of the Centra store.

 The former Erne Cinema viewed from Assaroe road today. 
Probably one of the largest cinemas in the North-West

The Rock Hall continued for a while as a cinema but its heyday was in establishing cinema in Ballyshannon from the early 20th century. Fortunately the Rock Hall was able to move with the times and meet other needs of the community. 

The Abbey Centre is a beautiful venue today with a number of theatres and is a focal point for the arts including, drama, musicals, pantomimes, bingo and lots more. In 2020 the only venue in Ballyshannon offering cinema films is the Film Club, monthly, in the Abbey Centre.

"Those were the days my friends we thought they'd never end"

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and 

Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available signed copies for postage or collection from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.