Some picture houses, such as Dublin’s Princess in Rathmines mentioned the restrictions in its advertising that week. A promise had, however, been given him that no children would be admitted to such places of entertainment” (“Success of Preventative Measures”).ĭublin’s Princess cinema advises patrons of its new opening hours under the Lighting Order Dublin Evening Mail 28 Oct. This was very tentative and not as explicitly stated as it might have been in the letter, but he expanded it when interviewed by saying that “In America during a somewhat similar epidemic, he understood that churches, cinemas and theatres had been closed for one week, or until the more acute stage had shown signs of passing away, and if the disease continued in Dublin in its present active form it would be desirable to follow the example set by the American authorities in this matter” (“Influenza Epidemic: Outbreak Still Serious”).Ī meeting then took place between Cameron and a delegation of the cinema and theatre owners, the full details of which weren’t published but some details emerged in a report in the Belfast News-Letter in which Cameron remarked that “a deputation representing over 50 cinema theatres had assured him, none of the employees of those houses had been attacked by the malady. He advised that “places where for hours large numbers of people congregate” should be avoided and possibly closed, as were theatres, music halls and even churches in America and as were children’s cinemas in Liverpool (“Sir Charles Cameron’s Advice”). 1918: 4.Īnd on 24 October, he again wrote to the papers, and his advice again mostly focused on children, pointing out that they should not only be kept out of school but also have their play monitored, including perhaps avoiding cinema. The first wave hadn’t had time to really register in relation to cinema – the resurgence of outdoor pursuits typically made summer cinema’s slow season, in any case – and the third wave’s impact in spring 1919 was very similar, albeit with regional variations, to what happened in the autumn of 1918.Ĭameron offered further advice on protecting children Irish Times 25 Oct. While other parts of the country were hit harder by one wave more than others, Dublin, which will receive particular attention here, was hit by all three waves, and particular hard by the second and third (Biener, Marsh and Milne 58-9).Ī focus on the second wave of influenza in Dublin in October and November 1918 doesn’t give the whole picture but it does give a good indication of what was happening with cinema in this pandemic. The first cases of the disease were reported in Belfast, and the city and contiguous areas of the north had a relative severe outbreak in summer 1918. But not all parts of the country were equally affected. The flu pandemic struck in three waves: the largely unheralded first wave in the summer of 1918, the second wave – the most virulent of the three – in the autumn of 1918 and the almost-as-deadly third wave in the spring of 1919. With COVID-19, we have heard about and may be experiencing a second wave of the infection as during the summer, many countries relaxed strict lockdowns and attempted to return to more normal business. Patricia Marsh’s graph comparing deaths in Belfast and Dublin during the three waves of flu in 1918-19. In a way, I think that this business as usual now looks stranger and more worthy of attention than it did two years ago because of the changed perspective that has come as the world experiences another pandemic a century later. Many cinemas already dealing with the hardships of World War I, remained open despite the deaths in the community around them, from which they drew both their audiences and their staff. Of course, I have been regretting now that I didn’t pursue that earlier piece to research to conclusions several things conspired against it, including a lack of sources, because the issues of Irish Limelight, Ireland’s only cinema magazine of the time, are not extant, and the usually informative “Irish Notes” column in the London-based Bioscope did not appear often during the height of the pandemic.Īs well as this, it looked two years ago like Irish cinema as a whole continued largely unchanged by the pandemic, despite cinema closures in some places. So this is the second wave of my research, prompted by 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic and an invitation to contribute to a webinar panel on the flu pandemic organized by members of HoMER, a network of researchers studying cinema history. In October 2018, I started a blog about flu, but I never finished it. The title of this blog refers to the fact that this is a second attempt at writing about the killer influenza pandemic and how it impacted on cinema in Ireland in 1918-19.
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