It’s no secret that Irish audiences love the cinema. Our figures for cinema admissions per head have consistently been among the highest in Europe since the mid-90s, and have been steadily increasing again since the full closure era of the Covid-19 Pandemic. This is part thanks to having plenty of multiscreen sites across the island to cater to film fans, with many owned and operated by multi-location local or international enterprises. The Irish-owned Omniplex runs 22 sites in the Republic, and IMC runs 15, while Movies@ and Arc own five each.
But while there are options inside the beautiful bubble of Dublin for arthouse or cultural venues, where beloved institutions like the Light House Cinema and the IFI are within walking distance of each other, with the former recording its best weekend ever just a few weeks ago at a screening of Brazilian Oscar winner I’m Still Here, the picture of the pictures beyond the Pale is not always necessarily the same. The closure of the Light House’s sister cinema the Pálás at the end of February was a sobering reminder of the precarious position that arts and cultural venues can find themselves in across Ireland.
“I mean, not to be too harsh, but I think it’s nothing short of disastrous.”
Mot Collins is a zine maker, artist and film fan based in Galway. For her, the loss of Pálás isn’t just a personal disappointment, but a disaster for creatives all across the county.
“Losing Pálás is such a massive blow to the artistic community, both creatives and audiences, both existing and flourishing in Galway, as it means the accessibility to independent and international film has been ripped away from us. Fact is, if we want to see films produced outside of the mainstream, we’ll have to travel to somewhere like the Light House or the IFI in Dublin, which while great institutions are not financially feasible to zip up and down to from Galway.”
While attending the cinema was like church for Collins and other Pálás lovers, the venue’s long path to opening didn’t always endear it to locals, and with an IMC, Omniplex and the Eye to compete with in the area, the Pálás struggled to fill screens, operating at a loss.
Last September, Element Pictures (EP) convened a meeting with the Department of Arts, Galway City Council, the Western Development Commission and Screen Ireland to tell the various stakeholders the cinema was not financially sustainable, and after being unable to secure alternate sources of funding, Element ultimately announced the cinema’s closure last December.
Efforts to secure “alternative funding solutions” came to nothing and, in December, it was announced that the Pálás would close in early 2025.
The loss was particularly disappointing for Galway given its status as a UNESCO City of Film. It gained the designation from the UN in 2014, becoming part of an international network to encourage cross artform collaboration and increase the creative impact on the city. The designation serves to recognise Galway’s long production history which goes back as far as 1905, its status as a centre of film, with Galway serving as a base of operations for TG4 and Screen Ireland, and for its strong resources in film making, film education, and film distribution, in particular, in serving as the host for the Galway Film Fleadh for over 30 years, one of the most celebrated festivals in the country, and a particularly important one for the Irish industry. For the Fleadh’s current Director of Programming Maeve McGrath, the loss of Pálás is also keenly felt.
“To lose any arts venue is sad and to lose Pálás as a venue for cultural cinema is a great loss for Galway. There are other cinemas in Galway of course, but Pálás played host to films that you might not have a chance to see in mainstream cinema complexes. For the Fleadh to lose one of our primary venues is very difficult. We screen up to 95 feature films and over 100 short films over the course of the festival and Pálás would have three screens in operation at one time, allowing us to screen films from diverse and emerging film makers that may not normally get a chance for a cinema screening. We are planning ahead as normal, as it is in our remit to provide a platform for indigenous Irish film and international cultural cinema in Galway for the Fleadh audience and we will be doing that this July.”
When the closure was confirmed, Collins and Stray Cats Press rallied to put together A Pálás For The People, part-tribute, part-eulogy and part call-to-action, a collection of articles, essays, poems and more to celebrate the cinema. From filmmakers, programmers to casual fans, over 60 pages of prose and praise came together in the zine, with contributions from Sian Conway, James Hudson, Shannon Welby and more either sharing their formative experiences of the space, their hopes for its future, or a general love letter to the magic of the movies, and the sacred spaces needed to feel their experiences.
“All of the pieces in the zine were received with a resounding echo of oh, you get it! We’re in this together!“. For Collins, the submissions were proof that love for the venue and what it represented was out there. For arts spaces, there is always going to be an element of those-who-get-it-get-it.
“I think people often forget that a cinema is a community space, even if watching a film sometimes feels like a singular experience. This is the church thing again – just by being in a screen together, you are communing with other people. That’s what reading every submission to this zine felt like; there’s such a love and tenderness and appreciation for what having an outlet like this has given us.“
Even while it was open, Pálás, like the Dublin venues, was something of an outlier as a dedicated arthouse cinema. Generally across the island, programming and partnerships are how art and independent films are shared, rather than specific venues. access>CINEMA is the resource organisation for regional cultural cinema exhibition in Ireland, and they provide supports for member groups in programming, promoting and screening the best of Irish, world and independent cinema. It’s a national network of non-profits and volunteers, bringing movies that may not otherwise find an audience outside of the big cities and cultural hubs. Individual viewers can also search for the nearest screenings of current films through access.
Festivals don’t stop when the credits roll for the Closing Gala. As McGrath points out, something of the Fleadh’s size, or DIFF here in Dublin, is a year-long event, a constant hustle to secure funding, and an effort to host further events to fill the gaps, to provide an outlet for indie cinema outside the core festival dates.
“People assume we disappear until the next edition of the festival but once the Fleadh finishes in July, we are back to planning and developing, sourcing funding and filing reports. We have GENERATION Fleadh in October and this is our festival for young people which is a growing audience for us. Then we have our Stowe Story Labs: Connemara Writers’ Retreat near the end of the year, which connects us with screen writers. Then we have one off events such as the Bridgerton event last year, and we are always talking to film makers and attending festivals such as IFFR, Berlin etc where we meet filmmakers, agents and distributors. We stay connected on our social platforms with up-to-date news, so we are never really ‘off’ in the film festival world.”
The Irish film industry has gotten very good at presenting itself abroad, whether that’s Screen Ireland’s impressive presence at marketplaces in Europe and North America, or the many dedicated film festivals in other countries for Irish film like the Irish Film Festa in Rome or the Capital Irish Film Festival in Washington. The Irish Film Institute is in the midst of their campaign, supported by Culture Ireland, to showcase the diverse range of voices bringing Ireland at some of these festivals and other venues, with ‘IFI International’.
Working with over 100 exhibition partners in more than 50 countries annually, and drawing on contemporary Irish film and the collections of the IFI Irish Film Archive, IFI International provides access for cultural exhibitors to new and classic Irish cinema. That goes hand in hand with their efforts to share Irish cinema around the island at home.
Louise Donlon is the Executive Director of the Belltable in Limerick, a multidisciplinary venue that houses a 220 seat theatre/cinema, which partnered with the IFI in 2016 to bring Irish and international cinema to the venue. Despite the obstacles facing independent cinema in Ireland – rising costs, shifting audience habits, and the dominance of mainstream content in the multiplexes, she still sees success in their efforts to champion bold, diverse storytelling.
“I find that the appetite for independent film remains strong, as seen in the dedicated audiences at IFI@Belltable. We do really well if the films are well made, diverse, and have the imprimatur of solid reviews and word of mouth, not to mention the buzz around awards season. And Irish cinema does very well – as an example, [recent] screenings of Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story were completely sold out. There is no doubt that the Limerick film audience is well versed, discerning and responsive to the best of arthouse cinema.”
The Fleadh and similar festivals are also invaluable in facilitating Irish exhibition, distribution, funding, as well as networking opportunities like the Fleadh’s the Marketplace at The Fair. McGrath has observed a strong interest from the festival’s audience for international films, but its the Irish films that are the crown jewel there, selling out quickly at the Fleadh, with buzzy films such as Kneecap even needing a second screening last year.
“We are seeing the audience connect with Irish film outside of festival settings with films like Sinead O’Shea’s, Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story selling out cinemas across Ireland and Kathleen Harris’s, Birdsong receiving rave reviews after screening on BBC4 and that is on top of the success of films like An Cailín Ciúin and That they May Face The Rising Sun.“
When word of mouth spreads about a particular film, as it did to boost Blue Road‘s profile, then demand spreads alongside it, which has always been a standard part of the distribution model. Smaller venues have a balancing act when it comes to getting behind local films that don’t have that no-brainer buzz, decisions have to be made about what else is seen in the space, whether that’s regional cinemas prioritising blockbusters, or arts venues hosting multiple disciplines. At Belltable, Donlon has been able to programme indie, Irish and international films, as one part of their programme.
“In some ways, I would love to be able to screen more, but sharing the space with theatre, music and all the range of performances that we present at Belltable limits what we can do. That’s the biggest challenge for our programme. The general costs of running a venue, like everything else, have risen significantly, so we are dealing as well. But I have to say that our IFI@Belltable programme is one of the most successful elements of our programme. Would it survive if it was only screening films? I’m not sure. Definitely being part of a wider programme helps.”
It’s easy to pat ourselves on the back as a nation of cinemagoers, those admission-per-head figures being the specialised equivalent to the government crowing about GDP, but the reality of what happened to Pálás provides a stark example of the challenges for a cinema, even with a successful entity like Element behind it. When Galway City Council commissioned an independent commercial appraisal of the cinema in January, their report claimed there was a “low demand” for arthouse films, with 78% of those presented at the Pálás cinema in 2024 attracting less than 100 viewers.
Audiences wanting to see cultural cinema may be smaller and box office returns will be impacted as a result, but we still need to make sure that cultural cinema is available for the audience that wants to see it.
Costs for upgrades to a cinema’s building and equipment can hit the six-figure mark very quickly, so even in the arts, which ideologically exists as a loss leader, financial support is always important. McGrath points out the constant battle that film is facing, from the distribution and exhibition angles.
“Marketing is a key part of a film’s cinema cycle and it is expensive to roll out a marketing plan that reaches the general public. The upkeep and replacement of projection equipment is also important and can be overlooked because of the costs attached. Think about what regional venues have the capacity to screen on 35mm, very few.“
Reports on the state of European film from Crescine last year show that Irish domestic film has not been able to profit from increased overall admissions – the ‘national films’ share of receipts from data collected in 2022 was 5% (UNIC), which is low by European standards. Although it is gradually rising since 2019, success stories like An Cailín Ciúin and Blue Road are exactly that, success stories, and ensuring that local audiences are aware of and interested in seeing local films takes a dedicated effort. These are the backbone of what our indie cinemas, festivals and exhibitors want to show. And the audiences are out there too. It’s a case of bringing them together.
For Mot, there’s still hope that independent cinema can flourish out west. The closure of Pálás prompted an instant outcry – within hours of the announcement, films fans in Galway began creating petitions. organising protests and emailing TDs, calling for the cinema to remain in public hands.
“There is a great movement currently gaining momentum in Galway called the Save Pálás Campaign – you can follow their actions and learn how you can participate by following @save.palas on Instagram. The campaign is focused on ensuring that the doors are reopened on a publicly run basis, which was the original intent for Pálás if I’m not mistaken.
I’m really in awe of the grassroots action taking place within that group and I’m very proud to be part of it. As our dearly departed David Lynch said, ‘People will boogie and make it happen.’ I believe in that with a sincerity that’s almost annoying.”
The Irish public’s love of the movies isn’t going away, and our industry’s talent is more defined, refined and celebrated than ever. For both audiences and artists, there is an appetite for independent cinema. Feeding that requires deeper discussions, cross-field collaboration, and proper support.