Beatles Plaque at the Former Adelphi Cinema, Dublin

The Beatles plaque in Dublin is on the Abbey Street side of Arnotts department store in Middle Abbey Street, where the Adelphi Cinema stood. It marks the band's two concerts there on 7 November 1963, their only Dublin shows. Lord Mayor Nial Ring unveiled it on 7 November 2018, 55 years to the day later.

Two shows on Middle Abbey Street

The Beatles played the Adelphi twice on 7 November 1963, at 6.30pm and 9.30pm, on their autumn tour of that year. Both sets ran to the same ten songs.

Trouble started in the streets rather than in the hall. After the first house let out, fans crowded along Abbey Street and onto O'Connell Street, and cars were reported overturned. About 250 gardaí were on duty, and reports put the toll at 50 injured, three taken to hospital and 12 arrests. Pathé News called the visit unwelcome, and the poet Patrick Kavanagh used his column to attack the band. Gay Byrne, then writing about pop, took their side.

The cinema that is no longer there

The Adelphi opened on 12 January 1939, a 2,304-seat Art Moderne cinema designed by William R. Glen. The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan played it later in the 1960s. It was split into smaller screens in the 1970s and closed on 30 November 1995. Apart from a fragment of the front, the building was demolished and the site became a car park for Arnotts, which is why the plaque is on a shop rather than a theatre.

Fifty-five years later

The journalist Paddy Murray first suggested marking the concerts. Dublin City Council put up the plaque, and Lord Mayor Nial Ring unveiled it on 7 November 2018. Gay Byrne came to the ceremony and told the fans, more than 50 of them standing in the rain, how close he had come in the early 1960s to handling the band's business himself. Look for it on the Abbey Street side of the building; the main Arnotts shopfront is round the corner on Henry Street.

Dublin was the band's only stop in the Republic, but not in Ireland. They crossed to Belfast the next night. For a plaque marking a similar small-town concert, see the Beatles Played Here plaque in Dingwall.