The Outsiders who built Irish Entertainment

Maurice and Louis Elliman

Elliman, Wendy

This is an engaging and informative history of one of Ireland’s most prominent entertainment families. Drawing on extensive family archives, and her own familiarity with the history of Irish popular entertainment, Wendy Elliman creates a colourful picture of Irish-Jewish life from the early years of the State to the mid-1960s. The story of two generations of entrepreneurs, their love of cinema and popular theatre, and the part they played in the formation of Irish cultural life in this period will appeal to general readers and historians of the period alike.
Professor Ruth Barton, Trinity College Dublin

This book tells the story of the birth of modern entertainment in Ireland through two generations of a remarkable immigrant family who helped shape it — from the birth of cinema through to the end of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Maurice Elliman arrived in Dublin in 1892 as a penniless refugee from Tsarist Russia. He started out by projecting magic lantern shows in travelling fairgrounds. By the time he died some fifty years later, he was hailed as a pioneer of cinema and ‘the father of the Dublin film trade’ (Dublin Evening Mail).
His son, Louis Elliman, would become Ireland’s ‘Mr. Show Business’ (The Irish Independent), early 20th century Ireland’s greatest impresario. Expanding the business his father had begun, Louis turned it into a national entertainment empire, comprising over 30 cinemas and major Dublin theatres, among them the celebrated Royal and the Gaiety. He brought to Ireland leading lights from the worlds of theatre, opera, dance and music worldwide, giving Irish audiences entertainment equal to any on New York’s Broadway or London’s West End. When World War II closed the seaways to international stars, Louis nurtured homegrown talent, many of whom later shone on global stages.
Interwoven with this story of the evolution of Ireland’s entertainment industry is the intimate saga of an immigrant family finding its feet, along with a rare glimpse into Hollywood at its mightiest — its ruthless studio heads and glittering stars — captured in Louis’s journal of his lavish, high-profile Tinsel Town visit in 1950. 

368 pages, 27 illustrations paperback

Copyright: 19/11/2025