Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy buys Phoenix Cinema, in Dingle, Co Kerry, with wife Yvonne McGuinness

Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy has bought the cinema in Ireland that helped spawn his love of acting. The Oscar-winner and his wife Yvonne McGuinness, have purchased the Phoenix Cinema, in Dingle, Co Kerry.

The pair have revealed they plan to renovate the venue, which has been used as a theatre and dance hall for more than a century. Murphy, who hails from Cork, revealed he used to visit the cinema as a child during summer holidays.

“I’ve been going to see films at The Phoenix since I was a young boy on summer holidays,” the 48-year-old said. “My dad saw movies there when he was a young man before me, and we’ve watched many films at The Phoenix with our own kids. We recognise what the cinema means to Dingle.”

The town-centre venue is the only cinema in the Dingle Peninsula, in the Ring of Kerry, and was previously run by Michael O’Sullivan, who bought The Phoenix in 1978. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, it shut down amid rising costs and falling attendances.

“We want to open the doors again, expand the creative potential of the site, re-establishing its place in the cultural fabric of this unique town,” McGuinness said.

In recent years, The Phoenix Cinema has hosted the Dingle International Film Festival, which Murphy has attended, as well as independent and foreign language films, and a Tuesday night film club.

Opened in 1919, it was built by brothers Jimmy and Johnny Houlihan. The cinema was rebuilt after fires in 1921 and 1938, and now boasts an art deco facade and phoenix floor mosaic to accompany the new name. In the 1950s, the Houlihans sold the venue to John Moore and it continued to be a cinema, concert venue and dance hall.

Notable shows at the site include seminal Irish guitarist, Rory Gallagher, as well as the David Lean-directed film, Ryan’s Daughter, which was made in the area.

After the cinema closed, a campaign was launched to save it, and Murphy and McGuinness have now stepped in to help The Phoenix once again rise from the ashes.

Murphy shot to fame in 2013 for his role as gangster Tommy Shelby in BBC drama, Peaky Blinders. The hit series is set to finish with a Netflix movie next year. Meanwhile, the actor has gone on to win a Golden Globe, a Bafta, an Academy Award and a Screen Actors Guild gong for his role in Oppenheimer, in which he played theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer.