Sharing the stage in Mayo with Roy Orbison

By Tom Gillespie

THE Royal Ballroom in Castlebar was the Mecca for entertainment in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Sunday night dances often saw up to 3,000 patrons travelling from far and wide to the venue, depending on the drawing power of the particular showband on stage.

Back then all ballrooms were ‘dry’ and no alcohol was served. It was usually after 10 p.m. before the crowds began flocking in as the pubs closed on a Sunday night at that time.

Before the main showband went on stage a local relief band entertained those present and the dances went on until 1 a.m.

There would often be queues outside and as patrons arrived they paid Gerry McDonnell and Paddy Cannon in the box office. Then, as they entered the hall, they would be greeted by doormen Martin Cannon and John Lavelle. The first stop for men and women was to the cloakroom to deposit their coats and in the case of the ladies their handbags.

It was then into the ballroom proper - ladies to the right, outside the snack bar, and men to the left, on the graveyard side.

The main band came on stage at 11 p.m. and it was then that dancing proper commenced. A special crash barrier was erected to protect the ladies from being crushed when a wave of Brute-smelling males advanced in seek of a dancing partner.

Each dance consisted of a set of three tunes, usually covers of the hits of the day, and the slow sets were most popular. Any male worth his salt, if he fancied his partner, was to ask the burning question - ‘Will you stay on for the next dance?' If the answer was in the positive the next step after that dance was to ask would she like a mineral.

Not only did the snack bar sell a variety of minerals but also snack bars, soup, tea, coffee and pastries.

Frank Nolan and Jack Basquill were in charge of the snack bar. The majority of the part-time staff had either St. Mary’s Hospital or Castlebar Bacon Factory connections.

I worked there for several years while attending St. Gerald’s College, initially as a waiter in the adjoining Travellers Friend Hotel. When the bar closed, dressed in white coat and bow, I took up a position in the gents cloakroom, graduating to the snack bar and later in charge of lighting from the stage.

This was not a very onerous task. It just involved dimming the house lights at the start of a dance set and switching them on again at the end.

The most important ‘switch’ was to have full house lights on for the playing of the National Anthem at the end of the dance.

During the dance several bouncers, as there were called then, patrolled the hall, headed by Terry O’Donoghue from McHale Road. Their task was to nip in the bud any potential rows that might arise.

As I said, I ended up as the ‘lighting technician’ on the stage which I shared with all the top showband stars of the day - Brendan Bowyer, Joe Dolan, Butch Moore, Brendan O’Brien, Dickie Rock, Doc Carroll, Larry Cunningham and Eileen Reid. The dressing room adjoining the stage was adequate but by today's standards would not be acceptable. A similar dressing room was located at the opposite side of the stage, reserved for female artists.

Once a dance ended the band members packed up their gear and their roadies loaded up the bandwagon. They got a chicken and ham salad and a pot of tea before setting out for their home base, probably three or four hours away.

On one Sunday night in 1963 one of the biggest international stars of that era, US entertainer Roy Orbison, complete with sunglasses, made a guest appearance at the Royal Ballroom, when Mick Delahunty and his orchestra were on stage.

He performed all his greatest hits - ‘Pretty Woman’, ‘Crying’, ‘In Dreams’, ‘The Candyman’ and ‘Dream Baby’ - before moving on to do another gig in Galway. Those were the days when autographs were collected and I still have Rob Orbison’s, which he signed for me 59 years ago (pictured).

From 1960 to 1966, 22 of his singles reached the Billboard Top 40, and he wrote or co-wrote almost all that entered the Top 10, including ‘Only the Lonely’ (1960), and ‘Running Scared’ (1961). From the mid-1960s he suffered a number of personal tragedies and his career faltered amidst declining record sales.

On December 6, 1988, Orbison spent the day flying model airplanes with his sons and ate dinner at his mother's home. Later that day, he died of a heart attack, at the age of 52.

In the summer of 1967 Tom Jones sang his heart out to a sold-out Royal with such hits as ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’. That same year, top British group The Tremeloes played to a packed house there.