Dancing at the Darby O’Gill’s

PJ Murrihy is on the bandstand getting his gig underway with one of his popular songs, ‘Eileen Alanna’.

Waltzers, who had been waiting eagerly to get started, are already wheeling around the dance floor.

It’s the weekly Thursday night dance in Darby O’Gill’s Country House Hotel, outside Killarney, and there are flashbacks to the good auld days of showbands and ballrooms.

Except the majority of the dancers are no longer that young. Some are well into their 80s, but their feet are still supple, their timing and movements precise. The youngest dancers are probably in their late 30s. Women outnumber men.

Mr Murrihy, a Co Clare farmer, is a favourite at these dances and is accompanied tonight by Macroom accordionist Jerome Coakley. This music is Irish with a country flavour. The songs are easy on the ear, ‘Put More Turf In The Fire Maryann’, ‘Rosslare Harbour’, et al.

“This type of dancing is very popular everywhere and I’ve noticed a pick-up since more people began to take early retirement,” says Mr Murrihy.

“We play standard music that people like — waltzes, quicksteps, foxtrots, and have been on the go since the 1970s.”

The admission charge is €10 and there are some nice additional touches — everyone gets sweets on arrival and biscuits are served in halfway through the night. Alcohol can be consumed, but many of the patrons are not drinking.

Organiser John Joe Herlihy, from Knocknagree, Co Cork, stresses that it’s about “social dancing”.

Whether patrons are married, single, widowed, divorced, or separated is entirely their own business. Like age, people’s status is not discussed. Some couples attend, but many of the 200 in attendance are unattached.

“We get people here from all over Munster. Some come every Thursday night and most of them know each other by now,” says Mr Herlihy.

Phyllis McLoughlinn, from Tralee, looks forward to the dances which, she says, give people of a certain age an opportunity to socialise.

And what of romance? Some relationships have started at the dances, but the primary purpose is social dancing, she stresses.

Tom Randles, a teetotaller from Kilgarvan, Co Kerry, goes to a few dances most weeks, depending on which bands are playing, and is also a regular at the Hazel Tree, near Mallow, Co Cork.

A number of broadcast outlets are in Darby O’Gill’s to mark the third anniversary of the dances at the venue.

Sean Radley, a retired primary teacher who is a making a programme for Millstreet Community Television, says: “It’s so important for people to have places where they can get together.

“Dances have always been a wonderful way of bringing people together, going back to the days of the house dances and then the dance halls.”

There, too, are Michael Dennehy of 103FM Mallow and Willie Fitzgerald, of the internet-based Cork Music Station.

It’s all over around midnight and the dancers go their separate ways, some inquiring what band will be there the next night.

In the words of a PJ Murrihy song, they won’t “be drawing little men in the ashes”.