Lastpictureshowat theAbbeyCinema

October 1992

The old glory days of cinema in Wexford ended unceremoniously last week, when the Abbey Cinema in George’s Street, once famous as the most modern facility in the county, played its last ever picture show.

The former house of luxury, which opened to a huge public welcome with ‘ The Seventh Veil’ starring James Mason and Ann Todd in January 1947, closed quietly and without formality last Thursday night.

Manageress, Miss Lena Bailey, who joined the Abbey as a kiosk attendant 39 years ago, put her key in the door for the last time and went home when Tom Cruise’s performance in the modern release ‘ Far and Away’ ended and the last customer trudged home.

As projectionist Nicky Fenlon poignantly removed the large lettering over the front entrance, Lena closed the door on 45 years of Wexford memories linked with the grand excitement of ‘ the pictures’.

She was misty-eyed about saying goodbye to the old place. ‘I’ll miss it. I’m sad that it’s closing. I had some great times here,’ she said.

So too did generations of Wexford adults and children, whose memories of countless happy nights and afternoons rapt in front of the big screen are now locked away inside, never to be repeated.

In 39 years, Lena hardly ever saw a film. ‘In the whole time I was here, I don’t think I sat through two films. I was always out in the foyer working,’ she said.

She wasn’t the only one who didn’t always see much. Many a couple paid the price of a pair of tickets to the balcony and caught no more than a glimpse of the film playing. Because the Abbey served a deeper social function. As the picture reels rolled, real-life romances were acted out in the comfortable shadows, on nights when it was too cold for walks in the country.

In the early days, there were little red bulbs dotted along the side walls, and it was not for nothing that they were called ‘ morality lights’. They became obsolete when the big white screen brightened things up. Then, when moral intervention was considered necessary, an usher adopted effective Gestapo-like tactics by shining a torch on the offending courting couple.

Times change though, and audiences deteriorated rapidly in the 1970s.

Photographer Pat Hayes, who was projectionist on opening night back in 1947, sums it up: ‘it was partly due to television, but you have to remember that the social life of people changed too,’ he said. ‘People started going to music lounges. And then videos really put the hammer on it.’

The Abbey was most recently owned by Ward Anderson, the developers of the new three-screen Cineplex opposite Dunnes Stores at Redmond Square.

It has auditoriums comprising of 300 seats, 200 seats, and 100 seats, and is one of the most modernly equipped buildings of its kind in Ireland.