Lighthouse Re-opens!

As a youngster, my favourite cinema was the Lighthouse - a two-screen (?) arthouse cinema, which stood on Abbey Street, a few doors down from the Adelphi - for it's easy ambience and excellent programming.

In the 90s, as the Irish Film Centre (now Irish Film Institute) opened, a lot of independent cinemas closed - the Ambassador, the Carlton, the Lighthouse and the Adelphi - and Dublin's cinema culture became a little less diverse.

In recent years, IFI has declined in quality and relevance - an at time bizaare (rather than eclectic) programme, with eccentric screening times - leaving the huge Cineworld multiplex, with it's rampaging hordes of teenagers, as the only other option for would-be arthouse cinema-goers.

Happily, The Lighthouse re-opens today, in Smithfield Market! This is, without doubt, the most exciting news for Irish cinemagoers for a long time. If the quality of programming at the new cinema comes anywhere near that of its namesake, I will be there every week! The opening programme looks promising.

1. Happy Go Lucky
   
2. Honeydripper
3. My Brother is an Only Child
4. Once
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6. XXY
   

While cinema attendance in the rest of the West has dropped through the floor - particularly in the US - going to 'the pictures' is still incredibly popular in Ireland. Let's hope it is popular enough to support a new cinema.