The people and streets of Enniscorthy star in this opening sequence of 'Hall's Pictorial Weekly'.
Enniscorthy on the River Slaney is one town which has more than its fair share of historical buildings and monuments.
Saint Aidan's Cathedral on Cathedral Street is the largest building constructed in Ireland to designs prepared by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52). Its foundation stone was laid in 1843.
The 1798 Memorial on Market Square depicts Father John Murphy with a young countryman. Cast in bronze by the sculptor Oliver Sheppard RHA (1865 - 1941), it commemorates those who fought and died in the 1798 Rebellion.
People wave at the camera, greyhounds are being walked on a sunny day, and locals go about their business in the town, presided over by Enniscorthy Castle, a Norman castle which dates back to 1190, when it was the residence of Maud de Quency, granddaughter of Strongbow and her husband Philip de Prendergast.
This episode of 'Hall's Pictorial Weekly’ was broadcast on 27 November 1975.
Once a week, from June to September, the ‘Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’ film crew would arrive at a town or village in any county in Ireland. They would film the people and the place and return to RTÉ where the footage was edited and put to music.
This short film of around one minute’s duration formed part of the opening sequence for that week’s episode. But no-one knew which location had been chosen, and it was not advertised as part of the programme billings in the RTÉ Guide or newspapers.
So with this in mind, people the length and breadth of the country tuned in religiously, in case it was the turn of their town or village to have its few minutes of fame.
