Back to the 90s as BBC NI releases new archives

Some of the first TV appearances by comedian Patrick Kielty and the golfer Darren Clarke are included in BBC video clips from the early 1990s which are now available to watch online.

Pictures of the first shoppers at the opening of the Castlecourt and Foyleside centres can also now be viewed.

More than 9,000 new video clips from the 1990s have been added to the dedicated BBC Northern Ireland Rewind website.

Fans of Derry GAA can re-live the county’s 1993 All-Ireland football victory while islanders on Rathlin can watch the opening of the first Housing Executive properties in 1994.

Pictures of the first shoppers at the opening of Castlecourt shopping centre can also now be viewed

Patrick Kielty appears on a news report about a new comedy club in Belfast, while a fresh-faced Darren Clarke discusses the start of his golf career on the European Tour in 1991.

The new video clips cover the period before and after the IRA and loyalist ceasefires in 1994.

County Down comic Patrick Kielty features in the archive

They cover political milestones and also social history, including Northern Ireland’s first female train conductor, Ruth Davies, starting work in 1990.

The opening of the children’s play area Indiana Land in Dundonald is also featured, as is the opening of a brand-new Great Victoria Street train station in the centre of Belfast.

Darren Clarke talks to the BBC at the beginning of his career in 1991

Three decades later, it recently closed to make way for the new £340m transport hub at Grand Central Station.

The Rewind website already has footage from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s.

The new videos cover from 1990 to 1996, when BBC Newsline replaced Inside Ulster as the main evening news programme.

Ruth Davies, Northern Ireland’s first female train conductor

Over 30,000 videos now available

Ciaran Daly, content and partnership editor at BBC Archives, said the new programme clips are a significant addition to the existing archive.

‘It now includes over 30,000 video assets – all of which are available free to watch,” he said.

“Work on this project was completed as part of wider activities to mark the centenary of BBC services in Northern Ireland.”

Security at the new Castlecourt shopping centre

Visitors to BBC Rewind have the ability to search for archive footage from their local area.

It is 100 years since the BBC first broadcast from Northern Ireland.

Back in 1924, the first voice heard on the airwaves from Belfast was Tyrone Guthrie who went on to enjoy an international career in theatre, as well as broadcasting.

The first Belfast transmitter was located in the east of the city on East Bridge Street, opposite what is now Lanyon Place train station.