Picture Palace

Torchlight on April 27, 2024 at 6:36 am

The 1927 Kine Year Book listed it as the Picture Palace. In the 1933 edition the Picture House name had been reinstated. Even in its final years, tinkering with the name was still happening. In the Coleraine Chronicle, 20th September 1974, the Palace had once more become the Picture Palace.

Browsing the pages of the Coleraine Chronicle, we find an advertisement in the issue dated 23rd August 1975 which carried the programme to 30th August. It also announced that the Picture Palace would close for 2 weeks (reason not given). The last advertisement seen was on 13th September 1975, for the programme to 20th September. The paper was examined as far as 20th December 1975 but nothing further was seen about the Palace or the Picture Palace, perhaps an indication that it had finally closed.

Still browsing the pages of the Kine Year Book, the name of the proprietor, Coleraine Picture Palace Company Limited, kept recurring. Mention has been made in Comments of the involvement of the Christie family, which helps to explain why the patrons nicknamed it “Christie’s.”

According to NI Archive.org/Reflections on the Causeway Coast & Glens, Coleraine’s first cinema was the Orange Hall in Union Street. Did it justify the name cinema? That question remains unresolved; no date or other details have been seen. If it was the first cinema, it must have predated the Picture House.