A 21-year-old Patrick Kielty launches The Empire Laughs Back

Footage of a 21-year-old Patrick Kielty performing on the opening night of Belfast’s first comedy club has been posted online.

The BBC released the video from the first gig at the Empire Bar, in October 1992, as part of a major archive of Northern Irish TV.

In his set, Kielty adopted the persona of a football commentator reporting on a sporting clash between Ulster, captained by firebrand DUP leader Ian Paisley, and the rest of Ireland captained by Albert Reynolds, who was Taoiseach, or Prime Minister,  at the time.

Also in the clip, from the Inside Ulster news show, are compere Barry Murphy and Owen O’Neill, who was headlining. 

The Empire Laughs Back club was the brainchild of former BBC comedy producer Jackie Hamilton, who also appears in the footage, who asked Kielty to join him in the venture.

Thirty-two years on and the club – which has had a reputation for being tough to play, especially for English acts –  is still going strong. Comics who have played there include Lee Evans,  Sean Lock, Lee Mack, Bill Bailey and Dara OBriain.

Watch the footage of the first night here.

It is one of 9,000 new archive videos, reflecting life in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, being published by the BBC, which will mean  the dedicated BBC Northern Ireland Rewind website will soon boast 30,000 video clips.

Other footage on the site includes a 1977 interview with Billy Connolly, the 1974 funeral of local comedian Jimmy Young, and Frank Carson launching a 1985 Christmas toy appeal

Published: 1 Nov 2024