Teenage discos resume at Mantra in Castlebar
By Tom Gillespie
A POST-Covid sold-out teenage disco will be held in the Mantra Club at the Ivy Towers Hotel, Castlebar, this Friday (April 8).
The event will be highly supervised with licensed security personnel and Order of Malta members operating a triage station.
The venue has been completely redecorated and Mary McHugh, owner of the property, said a ‘zero tolerance’ policy will be in place for the disco which will be attended by 500 to 600 young people.
The last teenage disco in the Ivy Tower Hotel complex was pre-Covid in 2020, which proved highly successful.
Said Mary: "We are the biggest place around that do teenage discos and most importantly we seem to have the trust of a lot of parents, which is hugely important to us.
"We could have started up earlier on but we felt let’s just let Covid run its course, which it has.
"The kids are back at school. They are not wearing masks. We are now ready to go with our first disco on this Friday at about two-thirds capacity - about 500 to 600 teenagers.
"Teenage discos are a huge responsibility. When the youngsters start coming to Mantra they don’t know the run of the place and they don’t know what we expect. They don’t understand that we have zero tolerance for any sort of bullying, abuse or bad behaviour. We just have zero tolerance. They get used to the rules and by their second disco usually they are in great form."
Mary continued: "All our security staff are fully licensed. We have the Order of Malta who will have a triage station. The doors will open at 7.30 p.m. and the start time is 8 p.m., finishing at 11 p.m., with security controlling their exit. However, if it is raining we will open the doors earlier."
Anyone who turns up intoxicated will not be admitted, and there are procedures to deal with issues like that. But Mary compliments the vast majority of teenagers coming to Mantra and described them as ‘amazing’.
Compere/rapper Black Paddy will be at the disco as well as a DJ from iRadio.
Mary went in to say: "Through Covid the teenagers have had nothing. Many of them have been traumatised. You see some of them walking around with their phones in their hands and their heads down. Let’s just get them with their heads up again."
The outdoor garden at the Ivy Tower was an amazing success last year and Mary is hoping to get a roof over it.
She added: "I think that is the way forward for the next few years. We are talking to people who do marquees and we are hoping they will design a roof for us.
"We are working on our new kitchen. We had a fire there is 2017. That is currently 80 per cent completed and hopefully it will be opened by Easter.
"We have a staff of 20 to 25, a lot of whom would be students as it was traditionally the way this business was run.
"I am currently working on advertising for chefs. We need a couple of chefs and experienced waiting staff."
The hotel, then named the Welcome Inn, was opened in 1962 by brothers Luke and Tom McHugh.
Mary added: "Currently we have 32 bedrooms all of which were redecorated in 2017. There is huge potential here and we have a lot of space at the back. I reckon we could get a further 40 to 50 bedrooms."
The Ivy Tower Hotel has the Castlebar Rugby Club dress dance coming up on April 23, the Foxford debs on April 29 and a 1920s function during the summer, and the blood bank come to the hotel four times each year.