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| Jimmy Higgins (left), one of Galway's best loved musicians from the Showband era, with Brendan McGowan from Galway City Museum who is working on our upcoming 'Dancehall Days' exhibition. Jimmy played a wonderful tune to mark the loan of his trumpet to the Museum, Brendan, on the other hand... |
Picture the scene: It's 1964 in Galway and there are so many people in the Seapoint ballroom in Salthill that they are climbing through the windows trying to get in! The act on stage that night was The Clancy Brothers, fresh from their hugely successful US tour, but this story, as recalled by Seapoint stallwart Ann Fahy, could have related to any night during the heyday of the 1960s, when some of the country's leading showbands visited Galway.
Ann is one of the many contributors to 'Dancehall Days', an exhibition that will celebrate the great showband era in Galway when people filed into the Seapoint or Hangar Ballrooms, or Marquees up and down the country, on any given Sunday night (Saturday night dances were not permitted as people were expected to be fresh for mass on Sunday morning).
Another very significant contributor to this exhibition is Jimmy Higgins, the Galway musician who was central to some of the leading showbands of the time, such as The Raindrops and The Millionaires. Jimmy is loaning his famous trumpet for our upcoming exhibition. Along with his two brothers, Paddy (who played drums), and Francie (who played the saxophone and is now sadly deceased), Jimmy is fondly remembered by all those who attended the many dances at venues throughout Galway.
In a time before mass media and MTV, showbands represented major stars and we had our own 'Elvis' and 'Cliff Richards' in the guise of Brendan Bowyer and Dickie Rock.
Our 'Dancehall Days' exhibition will be unveiled during the second phase of our redevelopment, due to open for the Arts Festival in July. The initial phase, opening in June, will consist of the groundfloor exhibitions about prehistoric and medieval Galway, as well as our new exhibition about the Pádraic Ó Conaire statue.
To add to our collection, we are now looking for a loan of that 'special dress' and a pair of shoes that would have been worn out to a dance at Salthill. According to contributors to the exhibition a common custom would be for sisters to share the same pair of dancing shoes, with one sister leaving them in a hole in the wall for the other to collect on her way to the dance! Contact us if you have these items for loan: museum@galwaycity.ie, 091 532460.
To add to our collection, we are now looking for a loan of that 'special dress' and a pair of shoes that would have been worn out to a dance at Salthill. According to contributors to the exhibition a common custom would be for sisters to share the same pair of dancing shoes, with one sister leaving them in a hole in the wall for the other to collect on her way to the dance! Contact us if you have these items for loan: museum@galwaycity.ie, 091 532460.
