Throwback Thursday: Memories of when Cork's Everyman was a popular cinema

We recently had a press release from The Everyman, asking if we knew that this distinguished late Victorian theatre was a cinema for a number of decades across its almost 130-year history.

Well, Everyman, we are certain there are many readers who STILL think of it as a cinema!

Back in the ’50s and ’60s, under the management of Dermot Breen (yes, he who founded the Cork Film Festival), it was films almost all the time, except for the regular interruptions by live theatre (whereas now it’s the other way round!)

It was vital that a number of live performances were held every year because that was the only way it could keep its bar licence! The bar in those days was right at the back, a very cosy place to meet up with friends of an evening, and was worth quite a lot to the management.

But the live shows that went on there were wonderful too, especially due to the non-stop efforts of the great James N. Healy who single-handedly, it seemed, ran the Gilbert & Sullivan Group and the Southern Theatre Group, as well as hosting various Golden Voice contests and staging wonderful musicals like Lilac Time, Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow, and so on.

We would like to hear from those of you who still think of The Palace as one of Cork’s best cinema venues. What movies did you see there, how old were you when you first went, did you bring your first date there?

We all have memories of that great Victorian theatre, which began with variety shows and a music hall, moved into the theatrical world, then into cinema, and is now back with live drama.

We mentioned the now demolished Sextant Bar on Albert Quay a week or so back, and went looking for that memory of a family living right over the bar in the 1950s and seeing all that went on in the streets around and on the quayside itself. Actually, we ran it in early January, 2022.

It was Dan Scanlan who lived there during those tough years of the ’50s. “Born in 1951, I was the youngest at that time of three children,” said Dan. 

“My older brother Sean, and sister Sarah, twins, were born in 1950. We lived in the first floor flat above the Sextant Bar, now sadly demolished, at the corner of Albert Street and Albert Quay.”

Young though he was at the time, Dan could vividly remember the memorable night the Opera House burned down in 1955, since from their eagle-eye view high up above the Sextant, they could see the huge glow lighting up the entire night sky over the city.

“The numbers 1 and 2 buses at that time stopped right outside the door of the pub, and alighting passengers gave us the news that the Opera House was ablaze in the city centre,” he recalled. “So the news came by bus.”

Meanwhile, reader John McGuire wrote to share his own memories about another beloved pub we mentioned in Throwback Thursday last week.

“The Swan And Cygnet holds a special place in my life and heart to this day,” he said. “I started as a trainee barman at the age of 16 round about 1982, and spent more than three years there under various managers, Tom Creedon/Tony Bloss and the Gaffer himself, Jim Clancy, which took me from boy to man in a short time, I tell you.”

John continued: “Looking back, that bar was and is still the best ever in Cork, from my, and a lot of other people’s points of view.

“Suits and boots clientele would grace the bar usually from 4pm until 7-8pm, with the dockers in from opening ‘til around lunchtime.

“And will I ever forget the bus conductors and drivers popping in before the last bus at around 11pm! Mad rush with stouts all over the counter ready and waiting for them before they had to leave and get the public (and some customers) home.

“I remember the place would be full at 10.55pm with them bating back the stouts, and then it would be like a ghost town at 11.15pm, with those same fellas pulling away from the stops in Pana!”

John added: “I served many a star in there after they’d come off stage at the Opera House or the Palace, from Luke Kelly, Christy Moore, and U2 to all the major jazz festival heads.

“I made life-long friends that I still have today. In fact, for over 25 years I ran a five-yearly reunion for ex-customers and staff.

“The final reunion was in PA Johnson’s (another great bar) around ten years ago, with some of Jim Clancy’s family turning up to be presented with a lovely drawing of the bar signed by everyone there on the night.

“Great memories, Great bar, Great people.”

John moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands in early 1985.

“When I got home again, the bar was in other ownership with the guy who also had The Mutton Lane Inn. Jim’s family must have sold up, as he passed away at a very early age – around 46-48?

“By chance, I had a drink in Reidy’s bar on Western Road many years ago and out in the beer garden was the main overhead door sign to The Swan And Cygnet. Of course, I asked to buy it, but was refused.”

John McGuire also found time to get involved in the local music scene during those years

“I played in a mildly successful Cork band called Idol Joy, and we had a room on the top floor of the Swan and Cygnet to rehearse. Not easy when you have a 2 x stack bass amp and drums, etc, to haul up and down for gigs!

“In the next door room was a band called 1990 – they consisted of Kieran Kennedy (Maria Doyle Kennedy’s husband) who had good success with Black Velvet band, and Wayne Sheehy (Cactus World News and Hinterland) as drummer.”

What took you away from your native city then, John, seeing you were so happy there?

“Well, myself and then girlfriend Debbie (wife and grandmother now) headed off to Jersey for the work/life challenge. I became a barman on a coast slipway bar called The White Horse in Harve De Pas. It was leased out by Gerry, an ex-pat who loved having the Cork accent behind the bar. Debbie worked in a Greek restaurant a few doors down.

“It was gloomy enough in winter, but around St Patrick’s Day the island turned into Ibiza 2. Mad!

“The bar was small but a huge beer garden on the slipway to a massive beach made it a real buzzing hive for more than six months of the year.

“I bought my first bass guitar and taught myself there, and wrote my first song, JFK - yes, about John F. Kennedy, how did you guess?”

John continues: “We met too many stars to mention in our time on Jersey, as it’s a tax-free island and all the stars have property there still.

“Fork lighting, Live Aid, and Barry McGuigan’s boxing world title win are all vivid memories from those years.”

John returned home to Cork with his wife, and they had their first child, Emma.

“I went back recently to see those familiar Jersey places again, 40 years on!” he said.

“It broke my heart leaving the Swan early in 1985, but if I hadn’t gone away, I might not today have my beautiful wife, three wonderful children, or my amazing five grandchildren - and counting!”

John, those are lovely memories, especially of De Last Drink Before De Last Bus.

Now – hands up who remembers the great days of the showbands and the local dance halls all across Cork city and county? Yes, thought you might. They were a pretty special time, weren’t they?

Well, down in Fermoy they are celebrating the music, memories and social life of Ireland’s showband and dance hall era over the next two weekends, offering real opportunities to wallow in nostalgia.

Tonight, they are screening that bittersweet film, The Ballroom Of Romance, starring the late, utterly great Brenda Fricker, and next Friday, October 2, they are launching a compilation of stories from that era, together with a photographic exhibition.

That will be followed by a gala concert on the Saturday and an afternoon tea dance at the Palace Ballroom on the Sunday.

So, if you have vivid memories of rushing home to change into full skirts and comb out the beehive, or alternatively sliding into the latest cords and desert boots, before heading out to the Arcadia, the Majorca, Redbarn, or wherever, Fermoy is the place to go to relive those happy days. https://www.fermoyyouthcentre.ie/ for all the info.

Liam Howard, MD of The Avondhu newspaper, is one of those behind the nostalgic event.

“For one thing, there are a lot of musicians from the Fermoy area that are dead and gone and we wanted to remember them, so we are going to have a memory wall in the youth centre which once was the Palace Theatre,” he said.

“Then we got talking about all those great bands that we enjoyed so much and thought they should be remembered too.

“We have pictures of a good lot of them, and I have compiled many of the stories I have been told into a book, which people can buy at the event and enjoy reading about the great times.”

True to his calling as a newspaper man, Liam then quizzes this writer about her own dance hall days.

“Oh, so you lived up on Summerhill, right above the Arcadia did you? Well, wasn’t that a great place to be at that time!

“I played music in the Arcadia quite a bit, as part of the warm-up band and, I well remember the night of the Eurovision when we flew off stage after our stint and into Handlebars next door to see Abba win with Waterloo!

“But my own place was Kilworth,” added Liam. “We had a local dance hall there, and one in Glanworth too. All the villages had a dance hall back then.”

Times were still strict in some areas though, recalls Liam.

“We played out at Sixmilebridge one night, as warm-up before Maurice Mulcahy. We struck up an old time waltz and some of the women who had no partners went out and started dancing together, just to be out there with the music, like.

“Well, the man who ran the hall was having none of that. He was going out and breaking up two women dancing, because he felt it simply wasn’t acceptable.”

The greatest thing those days, says Liam, was the sheer excitement of it all.

“Even before we were old enough to go dancing, we sensed it. I can still see a group of us all around the age of 14, coming home from school. One of the girls had a portable record player and a Brendan Bowyer record, Kiss Me Quick, and we in the middle of the road and we dancing to it!

“There was a sort of hysteria about the showbands. Once, Dickie Rock was playing in Tallow and staying in Fermoy and all the girls were gathered below the Royal Hotel, shrieking and screaming, and him waving out of a top window! Do they get the same buzz these days, I wonder?”

Share your showband memories with us! Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com or leave a message on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/echolivecork.