Church Street at the heart of RTÉ TV show

A fascinating new TV documentary, to air this week, charts the story of Athlone through three inhabitants of the main thoroughfare, Church Street. On the Street Where You Live will broadcast this Friday, July 27, at 7.30pm on RTÉ1, and features lively and interesting contributions from three local people synonymous with business along the main artery of town down through the decades - Donal Hynes, whose auctioneering business occupies the landmark buildings on the street, Lillie McCormack, who worked for years in her brother's photographic business just off Church Street or the "golden mile" as she dubbed it on the show and had her own sweet shop, along with solicitor Martin Egan, whose office is situated in the centre of town. Beautifully shot and put together, the half-hour programme intersperses some old newsreel footage of the town from decades past with how Athlone looks now, capturing the memories of the participants of the town in years gone by and their recollection of noteworthy events, like the fire at Athlone Woollen Mills or the arrival of AC Milan to play Athlone Town back in 1975, as they tell their own personal life stories and the story of the street in their own imitable styles. Born in 1925 in St Kieran's Terrace, which backed on to the river, Lillie McCormack laughs as she recalls while looking out on the Shannon that it was their swimming pool growing up. After finishing school, she worked in Murray's shop in Connaught Street before joining her brother, Jimmy in his new photography business in Northgate Street, where she also ran a sweet shop in the same premises. Looking at the reams of negatives and photos of events in the town of Athlone on screen, Lillie comments that the photos really comprise a social history of the town. Although she retired in 2004, and her shop long closed, it has been recreated with the McCormack Photography room in nearby Derryglad Museum in Curraghboy. During a walkabout along the street from his auctioneering business where the gate of Dublingate fame was situated, Donal Hynes points out one of only two access points into the town in medieval times along with the Northgate. He also tells funny stories from his youth including the tale of daring a friend to go down one of the crypts in the graveyard in Church Street and his many escapades as a member of Athlone Musical Society, which saw him take one of the principal parts in the shows over 21 years. "There were two lines of traffic down the street all day, every day past our building," Mr Hynes recalled of the town's reputation as a bottleneck for traffic east/west prior to the opening of the bypass in 1991. "It was a godsend," he said of the new bridge and relief road. Meanwhile, Ballinasloe native Martin Egan recalls coming to the town in 1970 to take up a position as a solicitor with Fair and Murtagh after studying law in Dublin. "When I came here first, there were only three solicitors, now I guess, there's closer to 33. That's a reflection of the overall growth in and around the town over the last 40 years," Mr Egan observes in the programme. He also remembers a huge sporting highlight for the area, the arrival of AC Milan to play Athlone Town in the UEFA Cup back in 1975 fondly reminiscing of watching the Italians picking their way through the puddles and mud to get in the gate. "You could see the shock on their faces," Mr Egan added, laughing at the memory. On the Street Where You Live airs on RTÉ1 this Friday, July 27, at 7.30pm.