Cillian Murphy and Yvonne McGuinness to return Kerry cinema to local community
Artist Yvonne McGuinness and actor Cillian Murphy bought the cinema in Dingle Co Kerry last year. Today, Ms McGuinness told a meeting in the venue: 'It's not about us. It's about protecting a small part of Irish cultural history.' Picture: John Locher/AP
Actor Cillian Murphy and his wife Yvonne McGuinness plan to return one of the last family-run cinemas in the country back to a “repurposed” version of its former glory.
However, Ms McGuinness told local residents at the first of three public meetings at Dingle’s Phoenix Cinema that it won't play host to regular viewing of films like Mr Murphy’s blockbuster, Oppenheimer.
Although it will host mainstream films at times, Yvonne McGuinness said: "We are not going to accommodate everyone.
"Oppenheimer is going to the multiplexes. They won’t give it to us unless we screen it three or four times a day and that’s not going to happen.”
The artist said the couple want to reopen the venue as a not-for-profit arts centre, hosting films, concerts, and a range of community events and workshops and “flexible spaces”.
At the Dykegate St venue, she said it will take the couple about three years to repurpose the cinema.
They will fund the work themselves as regeneration funding applications in partnership with Kerry County Council work their way through the system.
She said: “We really want to make this work. Cillian and myself are only custodians of the Phoenix.
“Our job is to journey through a new phase to it becoming a not-for-profit arts centre.
"It's not about us. It's about protecting a small part of Irish cultural history.
“Most of them are disappearing or have been repurposed and we felt compelled to save the Phoenix, because these buildings are part of our cultural identity.”
The couple confirmed the purchase of the iconic cinema last November.
At the time, Ms McGuinness said the couple planned to increase the venue’s “creative potential”. They bought it after a three-year campaign was launched by locals to save it after Michael O’Sullivan, who had bought it in 1978 and reopened it two years later, shut its doors during the pandemic, in November 2021.
He cited, among other reasons, rising costs and falling attendances.
Ms McGuinness also said the couple and their team, including architect Andrew Clancy, see their project as an opportunity to bring life to the town centre of Dingle.
“There could be something that this building does that's bigger than the picture house alone, that's bigger than the cinema,” she said.
“There could be days in the summer where every single part of this building is open and that people can walk through it.
"There could be days in the winter where the whole thing is allowing some closed sessions, some conference for people to happen, or artists to gather and exhibit work together.
“There could be times when the cinema is active all the time for films and there could be weeks where it's quite relaxed and it's allowing other things to happen.”
As well as a cinema, it has also operated as a concert venue and dance hall, playing host to legends such as guitarist Rory Gallagher, since it was opened in 1919.
It has also played host to the Dingle International Film Festival, where — in 2010 — Mr Murphy introduced his new film at the time, .
Other guests at the festival, held annually in March between 2007 and 2019, included actors Gabriel Byrne, Laura Dern, Aidan Gillen, Sarah Miles, Barry Keoghan, Maureen O Hara, Jack Reynor, and Saoirse Ronan.
As well as seeing films at the cinema with his own children, Mr Murphy watched films there as a youth, as did his own father before him.
