Survey Data
Reg No
11814055
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Cultural, Social
Previous Name
Coliseum Cinema
Original Use
Cinema
In Use As
Cinema
Date
1935 - 1945
Coordinates
289397, 219506
Date Recorded
21/05/2002
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay two-storey International Modern-style cinema, built 1939, with single-bay two-storey projecting bay to centre having single-bay two-storey flat-roofed lower flanking bays and stepped roof parapet. Extensively renovated, c.1985, with ground floor remodelled to accommodate part use as shopping centre. Gable-ended (gable-fronted) roof behind parapet. Replacement corrugated-iron, c.1985. Iron ridge tiles. Iron rainwater goods. Rendered walls to front (north-west) elevation. Painted. Rendered dressings including dentilated motifs to flanking bays. Rendered stepped parapet. Roughcast walls to remainder. Unpainted. Square-headed openings (paired to first floor with shallow segmental-headed openings to projecting bay to centre; remodelled, c.1985, to ground floor). Fixed-pane windows to first floor. Replacement aluminium fittings, c.1985, to left ground floor. Timber shopfront, c.1985, to right ground floor with pilasters, fixed-pane display windows and glazed timber doors having fascia over with box consoles. Road fronted. Concrete brick cobbled footpath to front.
Appraisal
Dara Cinema is a fine building in the International Modern style – a rare example of this style in the locality and therefore of considerable importance – that has been extensively remodelled to ground floor in the late twentieth century, leading to the loss of most of the original form and character to that portion. Attention to the ground floor in future renovation works might help to restore a more accurate representation of the original appearance of the building. The cinema is typical of many of the designs for rural Irish cinemas in the early to mid twentieth century, comprising a barn-style structure fronted with a façade of sleek, dynamic, Modern aspirations, and the undulating profile of the façade (created by advanced and projecting bays), together with a stepped parapet wall, is a characteristic shared with many other cinema buildings throughout the country, many of which are now lost. The cinema is of some social and cultural interest, and forms an attractive feature on the streetscape of Main Street North, with the stepped parapet adding variety to the roofline of the street.