Lyracrompane and the people of the village are the stars of the opening sequence for 'Hall's Pictorial Weekly'.
Lyracrumpane (sometimes spelled Lyreacrompane) in County Kerry is situated between Listowel, Tralee, Abbeyfeale and Castleisland. The place name in Irish Ladhar an Chrompáin can be translated to mean 'a section of land between two rivers', in this case the rivers Smearla and Spur.
One famous son of Lyracrumpane was matchmaker Dan Paddy Andy O'Sullivan, and Listowel based writer John B Keane spent a lot of time here in his younger years.
On the day the RTÉ camera is in Lyracrompane people go about their daily work, children look shyly at the camera, with dogs and calves also featured.
This episode of 'Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’ was broadcast on 4 July 1979.
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. 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.
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.
