Cootehill’s Cinema experience in 1923
Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column takes a look at a cinema licensing case at Cootehill Town Hall in 1923.
The early 1920s were troubled times and people gladly embraced the escapism portrayed in the moving pictures, or the movies, as we call them. Many changes were afoot in the beautiful town of Cootehill, where in December 1922, an enterprising mechanic had obtained a licence to show films in the Town Hall. Also, the Urban Council agreed on a plan to modernize the town by bringing electric lighting to the streets, powered by an electricity plant to be installed on the Fair Green. Another development reported in The Anglo-Celt was the shock announcement that Major Edward P. Smith owner of the Bellamont Estate was proposing to sell-off Bellamont Demesne and Castle, his houses and other rented out properties in the town of Cootehill, including his town-parks, with the request that all communication must go through his first cousin, Mr. L.C.P. Smith, solicitor, Kevitt Castle, Cavan. As the county and country transitioned into the new century, there were a raft of laws and regulations introduced; some of them were made to govern the cinema that sprung up.
The establishment of a cinema in the Town Hall in 1923 caused a stir at an urban council meeting and led them to prosecute the local mechanic. At a meeting of the Cootehill District Court in January 1923, the urban Council in front of Mr. M.J. Hannan, District Justice, summoned Thomas F. Godfrey, motor mechanic, Cavan Road; Samuel Brown, merchant, Bridge Street; and Patrick Horan for playing films in the Town Hall without a correct licence. Horan was the lessor of the Town Hall and Brown was the lessee, according to this newspaper.
Appearing on behalf of the Urban Council, the solicitor, George Maloney, drew attention to a news report in the press, which he deemed to be in contempt of the court, adding that the report appeared in The Anglo-Celt where there was a specific reference to the ‘recent case’, dubbed by the paper, he said, as a ‘peculiar prosecution’. Maloney continued that the report was a prejudgment of the case and therefore brought the court into contempt and ‘also the Urban Council for doing a thing that was absolutely silly, and if the public were to judge the case by the report’, then his standing might be considered ‘ridiculous’. The judge urged that Mr Maloney read aloud the complete Celt report headlined ‘a peculiar case’. The Very Rev. Philip O’Connell, P.P., V.G. and a large crowd of locals were present in court to observe the proceedings.
At a special sitting of the Urban Council a couple of weeks earlier on December 28, it was decided that should anyone get caught showing films in the town without a licence issued by the Urban Council, then the offenders ought to be prosecuted. The case before the court against Godfrey was taken at the behest of the Urban Council who pointed out that the accused had not sought a licence from them. However, Godfrey in his defence, said that some months earlier he had been legally issued with a cinema licence from Cavan County Council. A deputation of Cootehill councillors were sent to William Finlay, the secretary of the County Council, to instruct him to ‘withdraw’ the licence he issued to Godfrey. However, Finlay said that he had already issued cinema licences to several towns in Co Cavan, with the exception of Cavan Town. In the judge’s opinion, the whole affair had been ‘absolutely innocuous and harmless’.
George Maloney reminded everyone that it was the Urban Council who had brought on the case while emphasising that they had the authority to grant licences under the 1909 Act to allow the showing of ‘any exhibitions of pictures or other optical effects by means of a cinematograph or other similar apparatus for this purpose of which inflammable films were used, was subject to regulations made by the secretary for state’ and section 2 ‘laid it down that the County Council might grant licences for such pictures, under such restrictions as they might determine’.
The infringement lay in the fact that it was within the Urban Council’s powers to grant cinema licences and there was a separate matter of having adequate safeguards in the event of a fire. The film reels were highly flammable, and therefore buckets of sand were required at the venue.
The Urban Council instructed Thomas Godfrey to stop showing films but the request fell on deaf ears and they were shown on at least two more occasions. Godfrey opened the Town Hall doors to the public on Tuesdays and Fridays. Peter Smith, the Town Clerk, told the court, he had not been to the flicks himself, never-the-less, his authorisation of the summons against the three men was noted in the council’s minute book. Incidentally, prior to the case in question, films were previously shown from time to time in the Town Hall, and at other premises in the town.
One gets a feeling that the Town Clerk was annoyed more so by Godfrey’s attitude. Even though the accused was, by then, in the process of seeking an Urban Council licence, he had brazenly kept showing the films.
In his closing statement, his worship remarked that, ‘there had been a technical breach of the Cinema Act 1909’, further asserting, ‘I have to convict Godfrey and Brown of the offence complained of, namely not having the authority of a licence of the Urban Council. On the other hand, I am entitled to consider in this case the fact that this law has been left more or less in abeyance within the urban area for a number of years’ and that ‘this should be admitted’, adding it was an ‘extenuation which I am bound, I think to consider’. Believing the Urban Council’s claims to be bona fide, he had no option but to convict Godfrey and Brown (Horan denied all knowledge of what was going on in the Hall) of the said offence and yet he took into consideration the licence obtained from the County Council by the defendant, with the result that he fined them each at 10 shillings. Well, that’s show business for you.
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