DANNY DOYLE’S DANCEHALL DAYS
DANNY DOYLE RECKONS 60% OF PEOPLE IN WEXFORD MET THEIR HUSBAND OR WIFE IN HIS DANCE HALLS. DAVID LOOBY CHATTED TO HIM
IN THE 1970S, Adamstown’s Danny Doyle ran hundreds of dance nights at his dance halls throughout the country, bringing joy to tens of thousands. A love of music and the need to put a crust of bread on the table led Adamstown’s Danny Doyle into the world of entertainment in the late 1960s, when he started a revolution on the Irish dance hall circuit, where countless Wexford people met their future spouses.
The son of Elizabeth and Danny Doyle grew up in a different Ireland.
Speaking at his 160-year-old ancestral home at Glenour, Adamstown, Danny recalled men fighting in New Ross over a crust of brack.
‘I was born, bred and reared in this house, which dates back to 1856.
‘ There was a fire here at the turn of the century and it is said that a statue of the Blessed Virgin prevented a large section of the house from being burned to the ground.
‘I was reared on a Mickey Mouse farm. I went to the Vocational primary school and Master Curtis told me I wasn’t fit to sit my Primary Cert, but I went up to the school and passed it with flying colours. I studied a lot of amateur drama and performed in plays. I did Tops of the Towns and I loved the stage.’
Danny and his brothers bought their first tractor in 1958, which was the wettest harvest in years. They ran three farms but money was tight.
‘In the 1950s in Ireland there was absolutely nothing. There were only dances at the crossroads and in small halls. In 1947 the Adamstown Show was founded by Frank Barry, the princiapl at the local school and a subcommittee of 12 men was appointed to build a hall with a maple floor and crystal balls. The opening of the hall on May 1, 1955, was as big a deal as the opening of Croke Park.’
Funded through church gate collections and through the committee members mortgaging their houses, the hall went on to host Sunday night dances for three decades under several different managers.
People came from all over the region to the hall, which was lit by gas when it first opened its doors as rural electrification had not yet come to the area.
Danny said: ‘ The 1960s were a very bad time for me. I hadn’t any money. I saw men fighting over a crust of brack in New Ross. Every week there would be a few lads from the area gone to Rosslare to get the boat to England for work. There were no tea parties with cakes in people’s houses back then. When Albert Reynolds opened the hall in New Ross all the crowd started going there and the hall closed in the early 1960s.’
Danny enjoyed going to dances and spent time hunting rabbits also at this time.
‘I sold vegetables in Wexford and around the county trying to earn a crust.’
Louise Byrne ran the hall very successfully in the 1960s and afterwards it was taken over by a Dublin man who had no success with it. Danny took over running of the hall in 1968 and by 1970 he was running dance halls all over the country.
‘I was green as a leaf when it came to business. The hall came up for lease in Adamstown around the time when Albert Reynolds, who owned dance halls all over the country, closed the Barrowland ballroom in New Ross and I took over running it. I couldn’t get the big bands but I could get the next best thing. There was a little bit more money around in the late 1960s even though farmers weren’t getting any big single payment handouts back then.’ The hall put Adamstown on the map and the village – which is situated in the centre of the county – became the centre of the social universe for countles Wexford people every Sunday night at the dances. ‘ You’d only get lads out on a Sunday night as they would have shaved for Mass and be well dressed. Kevin Whelan was our carteaker and he would polish the floor and make it like glass. You could dance on the floor without a woman it was so good.’ EVERY NIGHT betweeen 1,000 and 2,000 people would pack to the hall with its shiny maple dancefloor, which Danny described as being as clean and shiny as a mirror, to dance the night away. Romances were born and future husbands and wives twirled under the beams of the old hall. The floor also reverberat-
I REMEMBER MEN FIGHTING OVER A CRUST OF BRACK
ed to the rhythm of dancing feet at dances on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
‘It was the biggest and most popular hall in the country for a time. People came from Borris, Graiguenamanagh, The Hook, Wexford, Enniscorthy, all parts. A lot of people walked home. I’d say 60 per cent of the people in the country met their husbands and wives at these dances.’
It was the arrival of a 16-year-old girl from Derry in 1970 which changed Adamstown forever.
‘Dana was the big start for me. The hall was going lukewarm and when I saw Dana on the black and white I said here is the winning song and I booked her on the Tuesday night before she won the Eurovision.
‘We had a civic reception and the Lord Mayor of Wexford came over and Pat Hayes arrived with his camera to take photographs and there were presentations to her. She was a frightened little girl of 16 but when she started to sing you could tell she was a perfectionist.’
Dana brought the house down in Adamstown and people still talk about her performance to this day.
‘We had to close the doors because the crowd was so big. We brought her around to the back of the hall as we couldn’t get her thorugh the front door. When we got it I thought I was in the wrong place as all you could see was priests everywhere.
‘ This was at a time when it was a parish hall and the clergy weren’t to go into it, but on the night when I came out to the stage there they all were to have a look at Dana. She captured the whole country’s imagination.
‘Ned Finn said at the time that Dana made the hall and that was true.’
Over the following decade the Brendan Bowyer Band, Dickie Rock, Joe Dolan, Larry Cunningham, Big Tom, and many more entertained crowds at the hall. The ballroom also played host to Sandie Shaw who won the Eurovision for the UK with ‘Puppet on a String’.
When things got quiet due to competition from other ballrooms, Danny had a brainwave and decided to charge people just over half the admission price if they came to the dance before 10 p.m.
‘I often had 800 people in by 10 p.m. and many more came in after.’
DANNY’S SKILL as a businessman and dance hall operator became legendary and he went on to manage 15 halls around the country.
He bought Caesar’s Palace in Bunclody and a hall in Fethard, County Tipperary and ran the dance nights at numerous locations including the Talbot Hotel in Wexford, Horan’s dancehall in Tralee, the Castle Ballroom in Enniscorthy, the Arcadia in Cahir, halls in Thurles, Clara, Athy, Tullow, Naas, Arklow, along with putting on shows in Kiltealy, Monamolin, Rathnure, Duncannon and Kilmuckridge, among other towns and villages.
‘ The shows were very successful in the 1970s and they kept me from the hunger as I was reared up very poor here. Adamstown Hall was run on a voluntary capacity so I didn’t make anything out of it.
‘I could never say no to anyone and as a result I
I BOOKED DANA THE TUESDAY BEFORE THE EUROVISION
was always on the road, be it for a parish dance or for a dance in a community hall.’
In the 1970s it was all country music and Danny was the go to man for country bands.
‘Albert Reynolds had the big acts like Brendan Bowyer, Dickie Rock and Joe Dolan. I had country music bands like The Mountain Ramblers and The Cotton Mill Boys.
‘ They were the Nathan Carters of the time. I always listened to the radio and I could see what people were dancing to and listening to in the shops. You have to know your music and know what people want.’
He said Brendan Bowyer was the biggest star he ever had in Adamstown. ‘He lasted longer than the others and he was a gentleman.’
Danny married Mary Coady from St Mullins in 1973 having met her at a post office Christmas party in the Five Counties Hotel in New Ross. They had six children, Marie, Danny, Tom, Martin, Paddy and Elizabeth.
Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s Mary helped Danny with his flourishing business from their Adamstown home.
AS DANNY made connections with more and more musicians, he developed his own sponsored radio slot on RTÉ radio with Brendan Balfe presenting. ‘ The bands would give me a few bob to get played as if they got a few songs played they were home and dry.’
When the Un-Yoke opened in 1980 the days of the ‘dry halls’ ended as people wanted to drink while out for a night’s dancing.
Danny had Clody Ballroom in Bunclody and to stave off competition from the Un-Yoke he bought a pub in the town and transferred the licence to the hall.
‘I bought a pub and I got a licence and transferred it into the dance hall. It was supposed to be highly illegal but we got it done. I was the first to do that and people all over the country used my case in the courts.
‘I had to set up a clinic to deal with all these people. Bunclody hall was huge for a few years. Like any hall you will get six to eight years out of them. It goes with the changing trends in music.’
Danny always tried to get on with everyone he did business with, but along the way he encountered some real ‘gurriers’, as he called them.
In the 1980s Adamstown Ballroom closed as ‘you couldn’t get drink in it’.
He started running discos in the 1980s even though he had no interest in the new musical fads. ‘I got my first licence in Bunclody and I had a 20ft screen and the videos would be projected onto it.’
He sold Caesar’s Palace in Bunclody in 1985 and the hall in Fethard around that time also and started a furniture business, which continues to this day.
‘It was a good period as I didn’t have to sell carrots or turnips on the quays in Wexford or wear a ragged suit and traipse into shops in Wexford selling tickets for dances.’
Danny erected a cross to three members of the Free State Army, Lieutenant Thomas Jones, Sergeant Edward O’Gorman and Private Patrick Horan, who were killed by Republican Forces in his field in 1923, at a crossroads near his home, and he has developed a breathtaking knowledge of the Civil War era.
A clean-living man who never drank or smoke, Danny said: ‘ The drink driving law was the best thing that ever came in.’
The ballroom where he spent so many Sunday nights has been quiet ever since it closed its doors back in the mid-1980s, bar an odd concert, including in 2009 when 800 people thronged the hall for a fantastic night in aid of Oylegate Community Centre, and in 2011 for a showband concert.
Danny, who is 79, says he is enjoying his retirement.
He said: ‘All I’m doing now is setting mouse traps and feeding the dogs.
‘I do miss the old showband days and there is talk of the hall being reopened for some events but I wouldn’t be interested in running any more dances.
‘I am proud of what I did, especially keeping the hall in the community’s hands. If you put the work in, you will get something back. I meet people every day who rememeber me from the dance hall and many of them were married having met there.’
Looking back on his life, Danny says with a smile: ‘I’ve been asked to write a book about my life – but if I published one, people would say I was writing fiction.’
‘If I wrote about my life, people would call it fiction’ I MEET PEOPLE EVERY DAY WHO REMEMBER ME FROM THE 1970S