Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Irish) cheap children’s matinées at the cinema; thus (reflective of changing prices): twopenny rush; fourpenny rush; sixpenny rush.

1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 242: The fourpenny rush of a Saturday afternoon.
1961		(con. 1930s) D. Behan Teems of Times and Happy Returns 61: It was the first time I had ever been in the pictures at night-time. It was better than the Sunday twopenny rush at The ‘Plaza’.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 9: The cheaper seats were eightpence for adults and fourpence for kids. Myself, I always went to the fourpenny rush.
1981		(con. 1918–1920s) P. Crosbie Your Dinner’s Poured Out! 121: The Penny Rush took place every Saturday in the late Teens and early Twenties at the Phoenix Cinema.
1982		E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 100: In the cowboy pictures at the Fourpenny Rush an Indian statue stood outside the tobacco shop.
1989		H. Leonard Out after Dark 149: The fourpenny rush with Charles Starret as the Durango Kid.
1994		(con. 1960s) G. Byrne Pictures in my Head 30: I have rowdied in lines of bedlam on Saturday afternoons outside picture-houses all over Dublin for the six-penny rush.
1995		M. Ryan et al. No Shoes in Summer n.p.: The Sundrive, or the ‘bower’, as we called it, had its ‘tuppenny rush’ where, when the doors were opened, one was physically carried in on the backs of young screaming demons [BS].
2108		(con. 1930s) M. McGrath Pie & Mash 71: For ted it’s tickets to the Saturday morning tupenny rush at the Ritz (also known as the bughouse).