Music & Dancing

Jim Tobin started his career with “The Firehouse” in 1969, after singing with a local band in Co. Meath called “The Craftsmen”. He spent the next 12 years with them at the [...]

The country house dances were once an important part of the social calendar of the rural parts around and indeed in Ballina. They were called balls and they were held to celebrate special events [...]

The Late Late Show paid tribute to the development of Country and Irish music over 50 years in recent months. And what of the songs from Irish artistes that made the charts in 1966 and were at [...]

Lent was the traditional time for no dances in former times. Yet the ballrooms of the country did not remajn silent they merely changed their form of entertainment when the people of the area and [...]

This ballroom was one of the many halls dotted around the county Mayo in rural areas when there was a much larger population in the countryside and people were very fond of dancing and had danced [...]

Martin Judge built The Grove in 1950 and the first dance was on the 20th May 1951, with Jack Ruane and His Band and the admission was 5s. Martin Judge bought the site for The Grove from the [...]

This piece looks at a moment in time when the noted Gaelic writer and scholar Mairtin ó Cadhain interviewed Sean Loftus in 1957 and as the interview was conducted as Gaeilge then I have decided [...]

Would you believe that under the penal laws it was illegal to have musical instruments of any kind? Where else did the playing of the spoons, bones and the gentle art of lilting come from? Where [...]

There were some leading show bands from this county. Jack Ruane Show band, Doc Carroll and his Royal Blues, Shay Cribben with the Riviera; and the Brose Walsh Band also. Jimmy Higgins called Mayo [...]

Forget your troubles and your worries and trip the light fantastic at the nearest venue to you and you are sure to find plenty this weather. What? The social dancing scene of course. Its mega at [...]