1964: BELFAST kids go WILD on a SUNDAY | Tonight | Archivist Picks | BBC Archive
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Published 2022-10-30
For at least one group of children, however, Sunday might just be the best day of the week. The children who attend the Holy Cross Church in Ardoyne might have to sit through a sermon like everybody else, but the payoff is a riotous performance by Ray Reno and the Crescendos, where the kids are treated to renditions of hits like the Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over" and Chan Romero's "Hippy, Hippy Shake," which they dance away to with religious fervour.
This clip is from Tonight, originally broadcast 24 February, 1964.
To mark the BBC's 100th birthday, our wonderful archivists have been asked to pick THEIR favourite BBC moments.
"This is 8 minutes of pure joy. What appears to be a staid look at a Sunday church service explodes into a riot of music, fun and wild, expressive dancing." - Paul.
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All Comments (21)
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Those kids were lit 🤣
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I've played many a gig in my life time. I'd be happy to play for an audience like this. Those kids were having a blast.
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All of these kids were born around the same time as my mother. It's cool to see how they acted and what life was like for a child back then. I'm sure it's not too dissimilar to how she was.
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Loved seeing the children dancing after having had to stand still for probably what seemed an eternity to them (if you pardon the pun).
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Sundays in Northern Ireland during this time was awful. So, people living in the border areas simply went into the Irish republic, where all bars, pubs, cafes and shops were open. People in Derry for example used to flock to Buncrana, County Donegal for the beach, pubs, cafes, bars, restaurants and shops, all open on a Sunday. Lough Swilly Buses provided a large Sunday service of buses to Buncrana.
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The kids were adorable what a cool way too have fun after a long service on mostly I presume bleak cold days
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Our moms and dads were great dancers 😄😄
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At the time of this report I was 9 years old, so same age as the kids shown. I can confirm the boredom of a Belfast Sunday. At the time I lived a few miles from this church in the Ballysillan area. The entrance to the Ballysillan park was chained along with the swings and the little kids round-about on a Sunday. Just for the hell of it, a friend and myself used to climb over the fence into the park and got chased by the park keeper, who threatened us with calling the "peelers" , strange to think it was once OK to call the cops to keep kids out of a park! 😎
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This is great! It truly reminded me of the Peanuts' gang Christmas dance :)
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Even down south in the 70s when I was a child there was very little open. It did leave Sunday to be a family day. It was a nice break in the week from consumerism.
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When this started, I was immediately taken back to the classic Hancock's Half Hour episode "Sunday Afternoon At Home", reflecting the stultifying boredom of the Sundays I experienced as a kid in the 1960s. But I certainly wasn't expecting what happened next!
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6:44 Something tells me the girl on the right really got into punk a decade and a bit later
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Those kids were brilliant. They were so into it, loving it . 😍
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I remember visiting Belfast on a Sunday in the 60's. You could not even get a cup of tea..It was like trying to hold hands and contact the living..Dublin on the other hand was not as quiet but most of the shops were still closed.
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Strange to think lots of those children are now collecting their pensions.
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Wow! What a great reportage from Belfast before hell came to their town. Those kids were great dancers! Holy cow! Give me more happy kids. I am born 1970 and all I remember from Belfast is war between IRA and the British troops, and ONE hotel that got bombed time and time again. Peace is brittle. Here is an old proverb: it takes one to declare war, but two to make peace. How many of these kids are living today? The youngest is 65. Have a peaceful sunday!
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Wondering why they chose exterior shots of Protestant churches and church-goers when the subject was Catholic children. The church is Holy Cross at Ardoyne. Great to see those kids but given their age and what was about to happen in Northern Ireland, and that area of Belfast in particular, I can't help but wonder how many were harmed, or did harm to others, or had their lives cut short.
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Lol! What did they put in the communion wine?
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In Switzerland everything is still closed Sundays. 😅
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I've watched this quite a few times and a sadness creeps over me. The genuine innocence of the children as they abandon the formalities of the church service. I'm of that generation and catholic background and understand. Within five years of this film of course, Belfast entered the very real jaws of hell. The religious bigotry and visceral hatreds engendered by the sectarian tribalism tore into those young lives.
