The Volta Electric Theatre (later renamed the Lyceum Picture Theatre) was a film theatre in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

and was Ireland's first dedicated cinema. The site at 45 Mary Street was later demolished and is occupied today by a department store. In the early 1900s, demand for moving pictures was fierce and cinemas were springing up all over the world. After visiting

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

, the writer

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

was determined to bring a cinema to Ireland, so after receiving the backing of his Italian friends, he set up the Cinematograph Volta on Mary Street. It opened its doors on 20 December 1909. The opening night featured an eclectic program, with the comedy ''Devilled Crab'', the mystery ''Bewitched Castle'', ''La Pourponièrre'', ''The First Paris Orphanage'', and ''The Tragedy of Beatrice Cency''.''

'' by

Richard Ellmann Richard David Ellmann, FBA (March 15, 1918 – May 13, 1987) was an American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for ''James ...

. Oxford University Press, New York 1959, 1982. p. 303. . A popular actor was Charlie Chaplin. Joyce soon became disillusioned with the venture, as the cinema mainly showed films from Europe and Italy, which were largely shunned by Dubliners at the time. After seven months, Joyce withdrew his involvement and the cinema was sold to the British Provincial Cinema Company. The cinema stayed open until 1919. In 1921, it was reopened as the Lyceum Picture Theatre following alterations which increased seating from 420 to 600. In the 1940s, Capitol and Allied Theatres Ltd. acquired the cinema; however, it closed its doors for the last time in 1948. Although it survived almost 40 years, the cinema was rarely successful.

Penneys Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not us ...

bought the building along with adjacent shops and built a department store on the demolished site. For many years the site of Ireland's first cinema was unknown to many as there was no plaque to commemorate it. However, on 12 June 2007, a plaque was unveiled on the original site marking the significance of 45 Mary Street. A connection between the name and cinema in Ireland still remains. VoltaAbout Us
at volta.ie. Retrieved April 4, 2021. is a streaming service for mainly Irish content.

Sources

*''The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) (at 342-343) *Kevin Rockett, Luke Gibbons and John Hill, ''Cinema and Ireland'' (Croom Helm, 1987) (at 5-6) *Bruce Stewart, ''James Joyce'' (Oxford University Press, 2007) (at 48-49)
The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival
"Volta Award"

References

External links

Lyceum Picture Theatre
at CinemaTreasures.com {{Cinemas of Dublin Former cinemas in Dublin (city) James Joyce