Incredible: we made almost 18m trips to the cinema

IRISH cinema-goers have bought approximately 17.6 million cinema tickets this year, an increase of about 200,000 on 2003 figures.

And cinema business analysts Dodona Research have predicted that a target of 20 million admissions annually could be reached by 2008.

At 4.4 visits per head of population, Ireland continues to hold the second-highest rate of cinema-goers in Europe.