Wexford town and its people are the stars of this opening sequence for 'Hall's Pictorial Weekly'.
Wexford town (in Irish Loch Garman) is bustling, local people acknowledge the camera crew in a friendly manner, and the hardware stores and shops in the town centre seem to be doing good business.
The decommissioned lightship the Guillemot is berthed at the quays. Built in Edinburgh's Leith shipyards in the 1920s, it was stationed at the Arklow sandbank from 1923 to 1968. The lightship was purchased that same year by the Wexford Maritime Museum Committee and converted to a floating maritime museum.
This episode of 'Hall's Pictorial Weekly’ was broadcast on 9 May 1974.
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.
