The number of movie screens in Ireland is set to explode, writes Michael Dwyer

AS IRISH cinema admissions continue to climb, exhibitors are responding to the demand by building more cinema complexes around the country. Four new sites, two in Cork and two in Galway, opened over the past month, adding 35 new screens to the Irish market.

While five of the existing Dublin multiplexes are owned by UK companies - UGC, Ster Century and the three UCI sites - it is significant that Irish exhibitors have been responsible for all of the new developments.

The Ward Anderson group, Ireland's largest cinema operator, is behind two of the new multiplexes, bringing its total of sites to 33. The company's 13-screen Omniplex, which opened at the Mahon Point shopping centre on the outskirts of Cork city on March 24th (see main picture), is Munster's largest multiplex. The state-of-the-art complex, with huge wall-to-wall screens and Dolby sound in each auditorium, has a capacity of 2,642 seats.

Last Friday the company opened its latest multiplex, the six-screen Omniplex at the City Limits Leisureplex in Oranmore on the outskirts of Galway, with a capacity of 1,400 seats. Two weeks earlier, Edwards Holdings opened the plush nine-screen Eye Cinema in the Galway suburbs. And at the beginning of March Tom O'Connor, who runs the Reel Picture multiplex in Ballincollig, Cork, opened a new seven-screen Reel Picture complex in Blackpool, Cork.

Storm Cinemas, which already operates five screens in Portlaoise and four in Cavan, is planning a major multiplex development at the Castletroy shopping centre in Limerick, with eight screens due open next month and at least six more to follow in the same complex later this year.

According to Paul Ward of the Ward Anderson group, the company is planning several further major developments, including a new eight-screen complex in Tralee to replace the existing four-screen cinema, nine screens in Carlow to replace the present three, and a new four-screen complex in Kilkenny.

In Dublin, the next major development is Movies@Dundrum, which is set to open in September at the new Dundrum Town Centre. The 12-screen complex, which will have a capacity of more than 2,000 seats, is a joint venture involving the O'Gorman family, which runs the seven-screen Ormonde in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, and the Spurlings, who operate cinemas in Greystones, Enniscorthy, Dungarvan, Castlebar and Antrim. They are also planning a 10-screen cinema for Salthill in Galway as their next joint venture.

Brian O'Gorman says he hopes that their Dundrum programme will provide a range of international cinema, building on the Ormonde's policy. "Minority films, for want of a better term, have done well for us in Stillorgan and we hope to play more of them in Dundrum. However, we would like distributors to make more prints available. Some of these films open here on very limited releases."

The Dundrum multiplex will bring the total of cinema screens in Dublin city and county to 115, of which 28 are in the city centre. Several companies are believed to be interested in a new multiplex containing at least 10 screens, which is expected to open at the Pavilions shopping centre at Swords in north Co Dublin in the summer of 2006.

Planning permission is also being sought for a nine-screen complex at the Swan Centre in the south Dublin village of Rathmines, which would provide a vital service for a catchment area that has lost both its long-established two-screen cinemas, the Classic and the Stella, in recent years.

Dublin registered 743,000 cinema admissions in February, an increase of 10.5 per cent on the same month last year. Total admissions at cinemas in the State were 1.5 million in February 2005, up by 15.8 per cent on the corresponding figures for last year.

Exhibitors and distributors are confident that 2005 will set new records for Irish cinemas, given the substantial increase in the number of screens and the fact that there are so many high-profile movies on the way between now and the end of the year, including Revenge of the Sith, Kingdom of Heaven, Batman Begins, War of the Worlds, Mr and Mrs Smith, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Island, Madagascar, The Fantastic Four, Bewitched, Cinderella Man, Wallace and Gromit in The Great Vegetable Plot, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Producers and King Kong.

Eithne Billington, general manager of Carlton Screen Advertising, which collates data on cinema exhibition in Ireland, says: "We are on track for another year of growth at the Irish box-office, and with our per capita admissions at 4.5, could match the US public as the world's biggest consumers of cinema within the next five years."