Raise a glass as you speculate what these drinkers might have been filmed for. Was it a celebration or a cautionary tale? What would you do with this snapshot from the vaults of the UTV news archive? Daylight filters through the reinforced safety glass windows, but the end of the night call to drink up, and move outside, doesn’t feel far off.

 

As a woman in Ireland at this time you would be lucky to have a pint on one glass. Many bars refused to serve women pints, instead you would have to spend extra and buy two half pints. This gradually changed as Nell McCafferty and others staged protests during the 1970s. In Northern Ireland pint drinking by women may have been tolerated however it was preferred by most pubs that any women be accompanied by a man and kept away from the bar in the lounge. During the 1960s and around the time of this film the Blouse Club played with these misogynist conventions and set up a ‘ladies only lounge’ which would only permit a man if he was invited and chaperoned at all times by a woman.

This material is Courtesy of the UTV Archive. 

Digitised as part of Unlocking Film Heritage.

• Britain on Film