The Co. Kerry town’s only cinema closed down in 2021 over a 100 years after first opening, igniting attempts by the arts community to save the culturally important and storied venue.
At the 11th hour and after other attempts at buying it had fallen through, Murphy and his wife purchased the cinema in November 2024 – just months after he won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in "Oppenheimer".
What they paid was not disclosed, but the building had been listed for sale for €1.5 million in 2022. Mark McLoughlin, co-director and board member of the Dingle Distillery International Film Festival – which will avail of the new cinema when its revamp is complete – said the Murphy family "have a very long connection in the area. As kids they were coming down here for years – their father had a small house here."
The Irish language "was a big thing" in Corkman Murphy’s family, Mr McLoughlin told Extra.ie, "so from his childhood years, he was coming and going here."
"Then he invested in a property here a number of years ago, which is used regularly enough by [Murphy and McGuinness] and their kids, so there’s a long familial connection to the area and a love of the language. As far as I’m aware, Cillian has pretty good Irish."
The couple plan to significantly extend the building – which hosted Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman for the premiere of "Far And Away" in 1992 – to turn it into a not-for-profit arts centre.
Aside from the cinema – which Murphy has said has been attended by three generations of his family over the years – the centre will include multi-disciplinary performance and workshop spaces, a recording studio, and a gallery and shop.
Plans have been lodged with Kerry County Council and a decision is due by February 25. The project has already been awarded almost €1million in funding from the government Rural Regeneration and Development Fund.
Mr McLoughlin said the couple began making "personal approaches" to "the significant players in the community from all areas of the arts" early in the process. There followed "a lot of public consultation", including a series of open meetings held in the cinema and attended by McGuinness.
"That was very brave of them, because you could really shoot yourself in the foot by over-exposing yourself to a community like that, rather than just going ahead," Mr McLoughlin said.
"They would have taken a risk just going ahead and ignoring the community, but they take a risk by fully embracing the community as well, because you’ll always endure some criticism or questions or objections or whatever.
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"But they’ve very bravely and very considerately done it, and the community has responded very positively as a result."
The couple has been "extremely open with the plans" and has adjusted them to incorporate feedback from the public.
Mr McLoughlin said: "Their energy and embracing of the project is immense, and they’re doing everything to involve the community as much as possible and really make a new hub that’s not just a place to go to for events, but is a place to hang out, where people can come together in the centre of the town and feel safe and comfortable.
"So I think the community are really embracing what will hopefully come, and the reopening of something that really was an icon and a place that brought everyone together."
The Phoenix had "literally been the hub of the community for decades upon decades" until it closed down during the pandemic.
Murphy and his artist wife, who is from Kilkenny, are "all game for embracing the [Dingle] film festival" when the renovation is complete, Mr McLoughlin said.
Though the festival, whose focus on masterclasses sets it apart from others, is thriving each November, the organiser said: "Nothing beats the real cinema for that special experience, so we’re really looking forward to getting back in there.
"It’s been a strain on us, obviously, having a festival without a cinema. We have to be creative in the venues we use."
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Guests at the festival over the years include Murphy himself, who introduced his film "Perrier’s Bounty" in 2010.
Other attendees include Gabriel Byrne, Laura Dern, Barry Keoghan, Maureen O’Hara, Jack Reynor, Saoirse Ronan and Aidan Gillen. The latter recorded a video in support of the campaign to save the cinema in 2022, in which he voiced concerns that the "total gem" would be turned into "two or three stories of yet more holiday accommodation".
Himself a documentary maker, Mr McLoughlin had been hoping to make a film on the "very interesting character" who owned the Phoenix, Michael "Francie" O’Sullivan, before he died in 2011.
O’Sullivan also ran "one of the most successful lobster businesses in the world from Dingle," along with operating the Phoenix, which had another life as a dancehall between spells being used as a cinema.
"[O’Sullivan] was known as one of Stanley Kubrick’s great friends, and he had an amazing connection with filmmakers all over," Mr McLoughlin said.
He set up a "very unique" weekly film club in the 1980s showing "left of centre" gems, which he would introduce with a speech – after parading the poster for the following week’s film.
"His son would bring a light over for him to read his speech, and the light was like a stick with a kind of a tin can on the top with a bulb in it," Mr McLoughlin remembered.
"So it was a very unique thing. But lots of very significant visitors came to the town to see this. It became a spectacle and nearly a kind of cult thing over time."
* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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