Dublin Cinemas in 1916: The Easter Rising, World War One Films and The Growth of the Middle-Class Audience

Abstract

This article shows how 1916 in Dublin was the year in which cinemas began to successfully attract and keep a middle-class audience. Cinemas used a number of different tactics to entice the middle class including: an enhancement of their musical provision, a presentation of films about World War One in a manner that included presenting the films with music, song and poetry, often performed by servicemen, and finally, a focus on the comforts the cinema building had to offer, which in some cases included refurbishments. The attempt to attract middle-class patrons was instigated by the need to diversify as more and more cinemas were reaching for a pool of the same number of working-class patrons. The article draws extensively upon The Irish Times of 1916 predominately as that paper was the organ of the middle and upper class of the era.