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Greystones Swimming Gala 1928
hese days, you can’t turn on the telly without seeing some fecker 
from around here releasing a book, starring in a film or running from the scene of a crime.
hese days, you can’t turn on the telly without seeing some fecker 
from around here releasing a book, starring in a film or running from the scene of a crime.But jump back 100 years, and it was a rare and beautiful thing to see our big, happy potato heads smiling back at us from a screen.
Long before RTÉ got their celluloid claws into us, it was the UK-based Pathé News – the newsreel and documentary production house founded in 1910 by French silent cinema pioneer Charles Pathé – that gave Ireland its close-ups. Having recently opened their 60 years of archive recordings to the public, we’ve managed to unearth some real local gems.
Including both the 1926 and the 1928 Greystones Swimming Galas, Mrs de Valera opening the 1921 Delgany Fete, Bray’s Round The Houses street races of 1934, sheep dog trials and Delgany Golf Club competitions of the early 1920s, and two 1929 reports on the mighty Harry Bradshaw.
Including both the 
Incredible to have, our purple patch of Wicklow captured on film long before Hollywood started having its wicked way with us on a very regular basis.
You can jump back through all the Pathé News reports here, those Tinseltown adventures here, go explore RTÉ’s archives of Greystones, Delgany and beyond here, and our early, amateur adventures on YouTube here.
Delgany Golf Club 1924
Greystones Swimming Gala 1928
Bray Round The Houses Race British Pathe 1934. Colourised by GG.
Swimming Gala early 1900s. Source: Gary Paine
Bray Swimming Gala 1943. Colourised by GG.