Renewed appeal over Carrick's pre-war cinemas

Gavin McGrath is working on an article for the Cinema Theatre Association, which will spotlight cinemas in Northern Ireland whether open or closed.

He is hoping to find more information on three old Carrick cinemas in particular.

These include the Castle and the Rossleigh cinemas, which were first listed in 1928, and the Ideal, first listed in 1932.

The vintage movie-houses are included in the Kine Year Books; however, additional details about them are scarce.

Since his initial appeal, Gavin has managed to unearth some further details on the buildings themselves.

“A more intense search revealed that the Castle was based in a former Unitarian church on Joymount, which was later used by the Tech in the 1950s, so the cinema had gone by then,” he said.

“The building was later destroyed by fire and appears to have been replaced by the library.

“The Ideal was still going in the 1960s and appears to have been where the Hot Gossip nightclub was, if the Facebook photo is correct.

“This was used as a roller disco in the 1980s and is clearly a different building to that of the Castle.”

Gavin can be contacted by email at [email protected].