Irish Showband - Ballrooms and Dance Halls

Ballrooms and Dance Halls

The city ballrooms were often purpose built and the rural dance halls of town and country were often simple barn like buildings at the edge of the town. Painted and lit in bright colours inside and out, they had fanciful romantic names such as "Fairyland", "Dreamland", and "Wonderland" and "Arcadia". Dance halls in smaller towns and villages would host a dance once or twice a month. The fans often travelled fifty km from the surrounding countryside to see their favourite band. Some city ballrooms were lavish dance palaces from an earlier era. The Mecca in Belfast, Dublin's Town and Country Club (a Corinthian pillared ballroom in the Georgian era), Rotunda Rooms, the Metropole and the TV Club were prominent among the plusher venues.

Most rural dance halls were roughly constructed in cheap materials by local entrepreneurs. Breeze block pebbled Irish Garage architecture prevailed. A chain of venues in the midlands was operated by Albert Reynolds, who would later become Taoiseach ( Prime Minister ) of the Republic. Associated Ballrooms was owned by mining magnate Con Hynes. The Lucey brothers had large ballrooms in Cork. In the North East, the Adelphi ballroom, owned by Dee O'Kane and Jimmy Hamilton in Dundalk, attracted audiences from both sides of the border. Summer dancing was held in wet and windy marquees during parish carnivals up and down the country. Predating Mc Donalds and similar fast food takeouts, dance hall 'Mineral Bars' dispensed ham sandwiches, potato crisps, hot beverages and soft drinks.

Ballrooms and dance halls did not sell alcoholic beverages. Alcohol sales remained the prerogative of the local pub who then began to build extensions onto pubs and operate their own disco or cabaret show.

At its height, the business employed many thousands of musicians, support staff and managers. There were as many as 700 full and part time bands travelling the country in the mid 1960s. By the mid-1970s the phenomenon had peaked, and was in decline. Many of the surviving bands reduced numbers and revamped into small pop rock or country music ensembles. A combination of upscale discos, new build modern hotel dance and cabaret rooms with full bar extensions brought the ballroom and showband business to a close in the early 1980s.