Billy McGrath’s feature documentary about the birth of popular Irish music is set for its European premiere at the 36th Galway Film Fleadh on Thursday, July 9th at Palas 1 Cinema at 1.15. pm.

Sideline Productions international hit Ballroom Boom – based on an original two-part 2024 commission from RTÉ’s Head of Factual Colm O’Callaghan – was re-edited a year later with extra content from Adam Clayton who was keen to explore what the Irish music scene was like before U2 started. Central to the story was the Irish showband, which dominated Ireland’s music scene in the 1960s. With contributions from Eileen Reid, Dickie Rock, Bob Geldof, Aonghus McAnally, Paddy Cole, Ronan Collins, Phil Coulter, Brendan Bowyer, Ultan Conlon, Linda Martin plus historians and journalists, these seven/eight-piece groups, including future legends Van Morrison and Rory Gallagher, performed an eclectic mix of waltzes, Irish music, jazz and pop hits in ballrooms across the country. 

It is estimated there were around 700 Irish showbands at the height of the ‘ballroom boom’ — and their popularity wasn’t confined to Ireland. Some 60 years before U2’s residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas, Irish showbands were packing out ballrooms in Sin City, New York, Boston and Chicago, managed by the colourful Irish-born promoter Bill Fuller who once owned over twenty venues world-wide – including The Fillmore West in San Francisco, Teach Furbo in Galway and The Electric Ballroom in London, which today is run by his daughter Kate, who appears in the film. 

One shocking event, however, tore the Irish music scene apart. On July 31, 1975, three members of The Miami — then Ireland’s most popular showband — were gunned down in Northern Ireland by rogue British soldiers. That tragedy dealt a devastating blow to Ireland’s live music scene, leading to touring musicians fearing for their safety and mass cancellation of cross-border dances. By the mid-1970s, ballroom audiences were declining, as new licensed venues and hotels offered alcohol, comfort, and food. As a result, licensed discos flourished, and astute showband singers moved into cabaret. 

Ballroom Boom also examines the showband’s role in the development of the Irish music industry and its social and cultural impact on a generation of young people now embracing social and political movements across the world. In the 1970s, new Irish universities flourished and young musicians, already immersed in rock, pop, and soul, turned their back on the copycat showbands.  Progressive new outfits like Horslips, The Bothy Band, The Johnsons, Mushroom, The Chieftains, Planxty, Clannad and Spud (then managed by future U2 manager Paul McGuinness) experimented with trad/folk and rock and won over a hungry audience, primed to embrace their own indigenous culture. 

As a result, joining a ‘human jukebox’ was not the only option for ambitious young musicians and songwriters. Soon showbands were off the menu!

“My passion for music started with showbands. One in particular – The Columbia Showband – which used to rehearse in the garage next to our rented holiday house in Arklow, Co Wicklow. As a young teen, I’d see them dropping a 45 onto a record player and then copying the chart hit note-for-note before playing it live a few hours later. Remember we had no Irish ‘pop’ radio at the time, so at a time when the economy and the church had us on our knees, showbands brought Ireland’s youth to their feet. It was also refreshing for Adam, as filming progressed, to conclude that the world in which U2 emerged ‘would have been so different without the pioneering and unique musical force of the Irish showband’. 

Personally, the Miami showband tragedy also had a huge bearing on my own career. It happened a few weeks after I had started a year as UCD Student Union’s first ever Ents Officer and, as a result, every UK band cancelled their trip to Ireland. So, we had to find local bands to fill the slots. One band from Dun Laoire caught my ear – The Boomtown Rats. A year later I moved in with Bob Geldof to help him organise The Falling Asunder Rock Revue – the first ever tour of Irish rock bands that played 18 dates in 24 days and ended at a packed National Stadium in Dublin in July 1976. Two stand-out shows were in Limerick and Teach Furbo in Spiddal, and, as there were no live rock venues in either city, I returned to run weekly clubs in The Glentworth Hotel, Limerick and The Castle Inn, Salthill.

As a previous PR manager for the Arts Festival and Film Fleadh (1990/91) it is an honour to have Ballroom Boom selected for its European premiere in Galway’.

Billy McGrath

Main Image: l to r – Billy McGrath (writer/director), Aideen O’Brien (daughter of Dixie’s singer Brendan), U2’s Adam Clayton; Kate Fuller (daughter of ballroom impresario Bill) and bandleader and DJ Ronan Collins.