Cinema Lane is a small one-way street in Wexford Town. It is one of two parallel routes linking South Main Street to Crescent Quay. The other is Henrietta Street.
It is also known as Harper’s Lane or Harpur’s Lane. Businesses in the area use both names interchangeably in their addresses.
The lane takes its name from the former Palace Cinema, a 600-seat venue that opened in 1914 as the town’s first proper cinema. The first film shown there was The Old Maid’s Baby (1914).
The Harpur name derives from a local family that owned much of the property in the area. One of the most notable members was Thomas Harpur, who served as Mayor of Wexford Town in the late 19th century. The lane also went by Hays Lane.
The former Uncle Sam’s fast food outlet, which closed in September 2019, once occupied the building at the entrance to the lane. It previously housed Peter Murphy & Son, a family-owned grocery store, and is now home to Mizzoni’s Pizza and Mario’s Pasta Bar, which opened in June 2025. A Costa Coffee outlet occupied the building on the opposite side before it closed permanently on 4 January 2026.
The lane was also the scene of an unsolved murder. William Hannan, who owned a small newsagent’s shop called The Dainty, was killed there on 8 March 1958.
Further along the lane, Ned Buggy operated a sports shop. The premises later housed The Handball Alley, a handball store that he and his son ran before it closed.
Other businesses in the area included Ann’s Angels, which closed more than a decade ago, and Farrells’ Furniture store, whose former premises were listed on Wexford County Council’s Active Derelict Sites Register in February 2025.
A small archway in the middle of Harper’s Lane connects it with Henrietta Street.
Ordnance Survey maps from the 19th century show the lane was called Harper’s Lane and contained a large timber yard that occupied much of the land between it and Henrietta Street.
More photographs of Wexford can be found on the Pictures of Wexford page.