Hall’s Pictorial Weekly in Mallow, Co. Cork, Ireland 1975

The people of Mallow in Cork are the stars of this opening sequence to ‘Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’. Mallow (in Irish Mala) is busy on a winter’s afternoon with cyclists, cars and pedestrians. The town’s young people make their way home from school, mixing with shoppers and those going about other business. Saint Mary’s Catholic church can be seen, as can the Clock House which dates from 1855 and was designed by Sir Charles Denham Orlando Jephson-Norreys of Mallow Castle. An amateur architect, he is said to have designed this half-timbered mock Tudor building upon his return from an alpine holiday. This episode of ‘Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’ was broadcast on 29 January 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. 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.