Removal of the slow set one of the greatest crimes perpetrated against the bachelors of rural Ireland
No one has ever explained to us farmers why the slow set was given the cold shoulder in the first place. Picture: H Armstrong/Getty
There would have been no need for RTÉ to make if the slow set was still around.
The national broadcaster could have saved itself a fortune in money, and indeed effort, if only the slow set had remained.
That is all that's wrong with romance in rural Ireland today. Nothing more and nothing less.
The removal of the slow set from the disco halls, and indeed the Macra dances of 30 years ago, was one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against the bachelors of rural Ireland. They have been reeling ever since.
A tribunal of investigation on the matter should have been set up long ago.
How ministers and successive governments over the intervening years, have done nothing about it, is a scandal. It's a downright disgrace.
If I became the minister for agriculture in the morning, with special powers for dancing, the first thing I would do is bring back the slow set.
I would insist on it. Dancing would be my first motion. The foot would go down on the matter, and it would stay down.
And I wouldn't care how much it cost. Or how much inconvenience it would cause. The slow set needs to return, and quickly.
It's the height of madness not to have it.
T'was long ago now, in a time far before covid. It posed no danger to human health.
The benefits surely far outweighed the risks involved.
Lucky for me, I obtained a wife before the curtain came down on the slow set.
But many of my cohorts missed that particular boat and have been sinking in a swamp of isolation and loneliness ever since.
Like the disappearance of the corncrake, the demise of the slow set still haunts us today. Its loss is still keenly felt in those hard-to-reach places.
With the slow set, with Michael Bolton in your corner, things were promising even before they begun at all.
For, drunk or sober, with a quick jolt of your trousers (to get yourself in gear), all you had to do was make your way across the dancefloor and ask a lady if she cared to dance. It was as simple as peeling spuds.
Yerra, there was none of this auld interview process and trying to impress with fancy words and acts of generosity.
'How am I supposed to live without you?' was all the ladies needed to hear.
And after Bolton had sung his guts out you were elected. Marriage was next on the cards and, shortly after, 15 children would arrive. And yes, then it was back to the farm full throttle.
Where did it all go wrong? It went wrong with the demise of the slow dance to the romantic ballad.
The cancelling of the slow set was a crime against rural Ireland.
It was a crime against all single men, but particularly against the tongue-tied and the humble in our herd.
But now we have , RTÉ's gallant attempt to ride to the rescue.
And God knows, while it's a good effort, it's still not a patch on the slow set.
is nothing more than a patching job on a burst balloon. The balloon better known as rural romance.
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