Cormac MacConnell: Hands off in the Ballroom of Nodance

I met a man this week in Galway City who was a close friend in summers way back then, when we were all young and free and footloose, and happy as the fabled Larry.

We had very little money, of course, and that was the reason four or five of us would band together on Sunday nights so we could jointly fund a hackney car to bring us to the big, dry ballrooms that were all the rage.

This was the era when there were hundreds of these ballrooms and hundreds of showbands to play on their stages, under spinning crystal balls.