The Royal Cinema
The completely reconstructed Royal Cinema, with 600 seats, opened with a fanfare of publicity on 17 November 1947. The first film to be shown was Cole Porter's musical Night and Day. Limerick cinema goers enjoyed many films at the Royal over the next 30 years or so. In the early 1980s a number of factors began to impact the cinema trade. The growing popularity and availability of videocassette recorders inspired the growing trade of the video rental shops, which in turn accelerated a decline in cinema audiences. A further problem in Ireland was the 23 per cent VAT rate on cinema admissions. Indeed, this was cited as an "intolerable burden" and the reason for the ultimate closure of the cinema. A Limerick Leader article noted that Limerick, which once had 4,600 cinema seats, was now reduced to one cinema, the Carlton. Efforts by Alderman Jim Kemmy, TD, and others to save the cinema, failed. The last film to be screened at the cinema was Police Academy 2, in March 1985.
Read more about this topic: Limerick Athenaeum
Famous quotes containing the words the royal, royal and/or cinema:
“Powerful, yes, that is the word that I constantly rolled on my tongue; I dreamed of absolute power, the kind that forces to kneel, that forces the enemy to capitulate, finally converting him, and the more the enemy is blind, cruel, sure of himself, buried in his conviction, the more his admission proclaims the royalty of he who has brought on his defeat.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“You know, he wanted to shoot the Royal Family, abolish marriage, and put everybody who’d been to public school in a chain gang. Yeah, he was a idealist, your dad was.”
—David Mercer, British screenwriter, and Karel Reisz. Mrs. Dell (Irene Handl)
“Compare ... the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)