The Ballroom of Romance

Betty Ann & the Teenbeats, Brian Coll and the Buckaroos, Big Tom and the Mainliners, the names evoke a different Ireland...

So what was the Ballroom of Romance, and who were the showbands that filled them?

The pics and info on this page come from a fascinating site www.irish-showbands.com. Click on some of the photos to enlarge them.

Dancing to the big bands and orchestras of the the 30's, 40's, and 50's finally exploded in the heyday of the showbands, the 1960's. Many new ballrooms were quickly built to meet the increased need of the dancing public. The halls were custom built for dancing and usually included a few bathrooms, a cloak room, and a mineral bar. (Mineral is the Irish equivalent of soda pop).

Many were more reminiscent of a shed than an entertainment facility. There was little seating, other than a row of benches around the perimeter of the dance floor. Some included an upstairs balcony area where weary dancers could catch their breath. Halls were often built "in the middle of nowhere," drawing patrons from towns and villages for miles around. Most of the ballrooms enjoyed an unprecedented run of success for twenty, thirty, even forty years.

Around the same time, the "carnival" craze also hit rural Ireland. In localities where there was no ballroom, the locals put up a tent. Local bars would receive an "exemption" for the period of 10-14 days when the festival was in full swing and soon every parish in Ireland had its own special celebration. Daytime activities were usually included in the festival program, but it was the bars and the tents that drew the crowds. Of course, the marquees had even worse facilities than the ballrooms, but to some extent, the "punters" didn't mind. After all, it was only once a year!

As time progressed, hotels starting getting into the dancing business, usually to make up for slow times of the year when tourists were few and far between. The introduction and widespread acceptance of the bar exemption (allowing hotels to serve alcohol until 1 or 2 in the morning) heralded the death of the ballroom. They were made possible by the hotel serving food (usually chicken and chips) which allowed them to keep the beer and Bacardi flowing.

The Miami showband in Seapoint Ballroom in late 1975.

Though hotels usually had smaller ballrooms, designed for weddings and business meetings, they definitely had better amenities and more plush surroundings. Some hotels did so well with dancing, they expanded their ballrooms or even added a special club. As discos spread across Ireland, the hotels could see an even better way to make money. Hire a local lad to play records, put up a few colored lights and a disco ball, and call yourself a nite club! It worked, and within a few years only the most popular ballrooms and bands survived and the romantic era of the showbands was all but dead.

At the same time, small towns around Ireland started building local multi-purpose "community centers." These venues were designed to accommodate everything from basketball to ballroom dancing, and were usually better equipped than ballrooms to handle customer needs. The community centers, although never a threat to the ballrooms, probably helped to hasten their demise.

The interior of The Flamingo Ballroom, Ballymena (from Billy Swann) shows the ballroom at its finest!

Today, most of the ballrooms are gone, if not physically, then in spirit. Many have been demolished to make way for new development, but most are simply empty and derelict. Often built in remote places, or on the outskirts of town, the land they occupy generally isn't very valuable. Some have been saved by local residents and renovated. Others have been converted to other uses, such as community centers, motor companies, (car dealerships), furniture stores, warehouses, or factories. Those that are still running have had to reinvent themselves every few years, adopting the model of whatever was popular...at least for a time.

Most of the Irish ballrooms now stand silent, a quiet reminder of a happier, more innocent time.

The pics and info on this page come from the site www.irish-showbands.com -  well worth a visit.