Recently Waterford County Museum discovered the earliest known film footage of Dungarvan, dating from November 11th 1920, in the archive of British Pathe. To place the newsreel in context we have included in this article two newspaper articles from the Dungarvan Observer, which shed light on the events in the film. The events occurred during the period of the Irish War Of Independence from 1919 – 1921. The following pages provide two contrasting accounts, the first by a columnist for the Dungarvan Observer newspaper and the second, an ‘official account’ which was sent to the newspaper. You can purchase a videotape or DVD of the footage on the Pathe web site.

To view the video, simply right click on the following link to download the video footage which is roughly 6Mb in size and select 'Save' or 'Save Target As'  to save it to your computer. You will need Windows media player 8 or above to view the video. Media Player updates are available from the microsoft website.

If you have an interest in this article you may be interested in the following articles, which provide background information relating to the period.

The Irish War of Independence 1919 - 1921
Memoirs Of George Lennon - Officer Commanding West Waterford Flying Column

British Pathe are one of the oldest media companies in the world. Their roots lie in 1890s Paris where their founder, Charles Pathe, pioneered the development of the moving image. They were established in London in 1902, and by 1910 were producing their famous bi-weekly newsreel the Pathe Gazette. After the First World War they started producing various Cinemagazines as well. By 1930 they were producing the Gazette, the Pathetone Weekly, the Pathe Pictorial and Eve's Film Review, covering entertainment, culture and womens' issues.

By the time Pathe finally stopped producing the cinema newsreel in 1970 they had accumulated 3500 hours of filmed history amounting to over 90,000 individual items.