The First Irish Television Channel 1951

 

"How are we going to keep them on the farm after they've seen Paree?

We are all aware that RTE television began on December 31^st, 1961, with a gala evening broadcast live from the Gresham Hotel. The show was hosted by Eamon Andrews and featured a less than enthusiastic introduction from President Eamon DeValera. However, RTE was not the first television channel on the island as BBC NI TV went on air in July 1953, in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II while the commercial Ulster Television first broadcast in October 1959. But before any of these, artists such as Barbara Mullen, celebrated pianist Charles Lynch, artist Sean Keating and the Comerford Irish dancing trio, crammed themselves into a small television studio in April 1951 and broadcast live, the first television station and programme to be broadcast from and to the Republic of Ireland.

 

It was horse show week, and as with 1923 when the RDS was at the centre of the first Government sanctioned radio station 2BP, they Ballsbridge venue was to host the first ever live television programmes created for an Irish viewing audience. As one newspaper headline termed it ‘Irish Television Was Born Last Night’.

 

Pye, with their Irish headquarters located in Dundrum, flew in seven and a half tons of equipment worth £30,000 including transmitter, aerial and cameras via Aer Lingus to Dublin Airport. The transmitter was installed in the grounds of the RDS and an aerial erected. A studio was constructed in the tea rooms at the rear of the grandstand, and the channel was ready to air.

A marquee was erected in the grounds and television sets installed where visitors could watch live the show jumping from the main arena. But if anyone rich enough to own a set in the greater Dublin area, reception would have been excellent. The main reception for the first broadcast was held before an invited crowd of 200 at the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street where twenty TV sets were set up for everyone to get a view of Irish television. Broadcasts continued throughout the five days of the Spring Show week. Commencing on May 1^st telecasts took place between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. from the studio, and after that the cameras would move to the horse jumping arena, with the events being televised with a running commentary provided. Sets were available to watch on in the special tent and in the members dining hall.

 

The opening broadcast was a 45-minute show with Ria Mooney acting as producer and director. The shows for the rest of the week were produced by Roy Croft. Ria was a stage and screen actress, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre from 1948 to 1963, and later director of the Gaiety School of Acting. She was the first female producer at the Abbey Theatre. She also was instrumental in setting up the RTE Players in 1947.

The Irish Independent reported,

The show was first-class and of a very high professional standard. It was compered by Barbara Mullen, who did not have much time to arrange with Hia Mooney all the rehearsals for the production. First of all, Miss Mullen welcomed all the viewers, and then the camera moved to Charles Lynch, the celebrated pianist, a T.V. veteran since 1937, who did wonders with a piano. Miss Mullen charmed for a while again and then there was shown a film of the operations of the B.B.C.'s television service behind the scenes. This was followed by the famous Comerford Trio of ' Irish dancers, -who performed to the accompaniment of violins and Uilleann pipes. Next Miss Mullen moved across the set to Mr. John Keating, President of the Royal Irish Academy, who was busy with a canvas, and had a friendly chat with the famous artist. Thomas Studley of Radio Eireann then gave some wonderful samples of impersonation of some distinguished persons. Angela O'Connor, of the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society, seemed to enjoy her first television performance as she sang " La Belle Parisienne." The real merit of television was displayed in the scene from Donagh MacDonagh's " Happy as Larry " in which Liam Foley and Ita Little performed to such great advantage. The whole show was a credit to everyone connected with it. and though only an experiment it was a splendid pointer to what could be done should a start be made on television in this country.

 

Roy Croft was a stalwart of Radio Eireann. He was born Harry Roycroft in 1922 and was a natural entertainer. He began to compere and organise variety shows and this led to Roy replacing Eamon Andrews at the Theatre Royal as the host of ‘Double of Nothing’. This exposure thanks to Andrews’s departure to London, gained recognition at Radio Eireann. Roy originated Beginners Please, Ireland's first broadcast talent show. In the days when radio was under the direct control of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, there was a reluctance to allow the public near a microphone, but Roy persuaded the station to take a chance. It was an unqualified success, and Roy took the show around Ireland with a system of regional heats. His catchphrase, "the beginners of tonight may be our stars of tomorrow". The show opened the door for some of the best-known Irish entertainers including the first on air performances by Joe Dolan, Val Doonican, Paddy Crosbie of ‘School Around the Corner’ fame and The Harmonichords, who later renamed themselves as The Bachelors. In 1961, Roy compered a talent show in Cork as they sought new talent for the upcoming launch of RTE’s television service. The winner of that competition was a thirteen-year-old Rory Gallagher. In 1978 Roy was the chairman of the judging panel in Limerick when a young Dublin rock band won first prize, U2.

 

In the 1960’s when Roy married his wife encouraged him to get a ‘proper job’ and Roy left Radio Eireann and joined Guinness’s as a promotions manager and remained with the brewery until his retirement. He passed away in 2013.

Thomas Studley according to the Equity website

Prior to joining Radio Éireann, Tom had already established himself as a stage actor, featuring in many Abbey Theatre plays. The constrictions of radio work limited his later appearances there, to “King of the Barna Men” in 1967, “Aaron Thy Brother” in the 1968 Dublin Theatre Festival and “The Drums of Father Ned” in 1985.

An extremely good mimic, Tom made memorable broadcasts as Sean O’Casey and Bernard Shaw, and on retirement, had amassed an amazing total of more than 1,000 radio performances.

Studley died in September 2014.

The instrumentalists The Comerford Trio were a Dublin Ceilidh band with an award winning a dancing troupe from the 1930s under Lily Comerford. The musicians were Marie McCrystal (Fiddle), Christina Sheridan (piccolo) and Mrs Davenport (piano).

                                                  

Barbara Mullen was an American-born actress well known in Britain later for playing the part of Janet McPherson, the in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook on television. 

Mullen's parents were Pat and Bridget. Her father was from a fishing family on Inishmore island off the coast of Galway. He met his first wife, Bridget in South Boston, Massachusetts, where she had emigrated from Galway with her late husband, Patrick Crowe. Mullen was born in Boston. She made her stage debut as a dancer at the age of three. When her father returned to Aran, later contributing to the making of Man of Aran, the classic documentary film by Robert Flaherty, while her mother stayed in the U.S. to bring up their 8 children. Barbara would later marry John Taylor who was the cameraman on the Man of Aran. Mullen sang and danced in various theatres all over the U.S. and then moved to the UK in 1934 and began appearing on BBC radio including The Irish Half Hour. 

Barbara Mullen

The Irish Half Hour was a BBC wartime radio show that began on Tuesday November 11th 1941. It featured artist was the great Irish singer Count John McCormack who had been living in London at the time. The first show featured mostly music from McCormack and the BBC Orchestra, conducted by Leslie Woodgate. That show was compered by future celebrity author Leonard Strong, whose parents were Irish.

 

The following week November 22nd, it was a different type of show now featuring Jimmy O’Dea as his famous incarnation as Biddy Mulligan, the Pride of the Coombe and sketches and skits featuring the fictional rural Irish town of Ballygobackward. O’Dea ignored the threat of German U-Boats in the Irish Sea to travel back and forth to the UK to record the shows in Bristol. In total up to the final episode on December 3rd, 1943, which was unusually pre-recorded to accommodate O’Dea’s panto rehearsal at the Gaiety. In total eighty episodes were aired. The Radio Times advertised,

‘The Irish Half Hour with Jimmy O’Dea and Barbara Mullen specially recorded for Irish men and women in the Forces. Compere, Joe Linnane. Singer, Robert Irwin. Writer, Harry O'Donovan.’

 

The show was aired on the BBC Forces service although some Irish regional newspapers were referring to it was the BBC Alternative Service avoiding the militaristic term of ‘forces’.

According to the RDS report,

Four hundred people at a time were able to view demonstrations of television in a portion of the Band Lawn specially arranged for the purpose. These demonstrations were given by Messrs. Pye (Ireland) Ltd. A studio was fitted, up in the tea gardens at the back of the grandstand and stage shows, Jumping Competitions, Grand Parades and other features of the Show were televised daily. In addition to the television receiving sets installed on the Band Lawn, a number of sets were placed in the. Members' Hall for the use of Members. On the Saturday previous to the Show Messrs. Pye (Ireland) Ltd. gave a reception and dinner in the Gresham Hotel and a special show televised from the studio in Ball's Bridge was seen by about three hundred guests, including the President of the Society and some members of the Council: For the purpose of giving this first public demonstration of television in Dublin, £30,000 worth of equipment was flown from London to Dublin by Pye (Ireland) Ltd. These demonstrations proved a great attraction and the Committee appreciate the excellent manner in which, they were carried through.

The studios were described in the Irish Independent,

I turned the knob and stepped into that modem Aladdin's Cave, a Television Studio. On my left were the artists dressing rooms they have been spared make-up for the Ballsbridge telecasts and on my right the works.

They were the size and shape of three tall steel filing cabinets, except that they were all insides and no outsides. tall blocks of valves and terminals and condensers of a complication that is baffling to a man like me. The first, which ended on top like a film projector, proved to be a film projector, but of the special type which, is known as a " scanner." The next "cabinet" was surmounted by a television screen, and I guessed it was a " monitor ".  The third and last was the transmitter, which is not to be tackled by anyone who feels ill at ease with three-point plugs and fuse-boxes.

From the transmitter, I went through a door into the studio proper and ended up with the television camera. The studio was in odd contrast, the beam microphones, the tremendous battery of powerful lights, and the cameras that occupy it. For the working end of the studio proper had those grey backgrounds with dim black outlines which were once the background of the professional photographer the sort of photographer who took you holding your bowler over your heart while your other hand rested on an antique pillar. Dominating the scene in which the microphones have to be kept out of the picture, is the camera which looks something like a gigantic square-barrelled Lewis gun mounted on a wheeled trolley on which the cameraman sits. Then you stand before the camera, you see a glass eye and when the little red lamp beside it lights you are being heard and seen by the world, for fifty miles around. But what goes on inside it well. I’m afraid photo-electric silvercaseum cells, electron gun assemblies Frame time bases and cathode ray tubes, and all the rest are Greek to me.

 

A corner under the great awning over " the Band Lawn, has been screened off and as far as possible "blacked out ", to hold the sets, on whose bright screens you may enjoy the singing of Peggy Dell and Cecil Nash, the humour of compere Roy Croft, the magic of Albert Le Bas, and many another of our Irish artists, or even see the Jumping In the Enclosure without the bother of looking for a seat on the  stands.

Roy Croft

According to Le Bas’s biography ‘Oofle Dust’,

‘Oofle Dust’ is the story of Albert le Bas, the softly spoken Irishman who was acknowledged as one of the world's most outstanding magicians. A man at the apex of the ancient and honoured craft of magic. A dream that took him from local carnivals in Ireland during the 1940s to the hallowed stage of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the BBC studios, West End theatres in London, sparkling venues across Europe and the USA, as well as appearances before royalty.’

 

It is the story of variety and entertainment in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s. From opening Ireland's first shop for wizards and magicians, performing on Ireland's first television broadcast to becoming the mainstay of the hugely successful Jurys Cabaret, Albert shared his dream with Betty, the love of his life. A life strewn with roses. Until the thorns appeared.

Albert Le Bas

Thanks to the Pye television demonstrations, it was one of the busiest Spring Show with over 63,000 attending. Despite the enormous press attention given to the birth of Irish television, Pye did take out advertisements suggesting citizens did not purchase sets as this was only an experiment and BBC transmitter signals were difficult to receive in Ireland. Pye’s efforts were rewarded a decade later when the company won the contract to provide the transmitter network for the new TV service, RTE.