If you’ve never been to this magical children’s music event, there’s still time

The Peace Proms is, hands down, the most magnificent of children’s events. If you’ve ever had a child take part, then I don’t need to convince you of this.

But if you haven’t, allow me to explain. In my case it involved my son and classmates singing along with two and half thousand other children, accompanied by a live orchestra (the amazing Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland), with dancers, soloists, and a conductor with the ability to exercise incredible child crowd control with just a move of his little finger – rendering many parents in the sell-out crowd at the RDS utterly speechless. They were wondering if this might have been a better approach to getting their children to do what they wanted, rather than roaring like a fishwife over the years. “What sorcery is this?” their stunned expressions read.

I am a veteran Peace Proms attender, on account of having a socially unacceptable number of children. I used to wonder whether I was slightly addicted to pregnancy and having babies.

Apparently, that’s a real thing.

If you’ve never been to this magical children’s music event, there’s still time

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But I had to stop on account of not having a public service vehicle licence and every seat in the Transit being filled. Which meant that the inevitable would one day happen - my final Peace Proms would come around.

And so it came to pass. Every child at my children’s school gets one chance to be in the Peace Proms. And when you’re a veteran, you know exactly how much you have to look forward to, so the excitement starts early. “It’s so special,” I told my little boy. “A really big deal. You’re going to love it.”

In fact, I blew the event up to such epic proportions that he even wondered whether his participating in the show might be up there with his Communion and merit the booking of a bouncy castle. Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, or in any way take the sheen off the occasion, I responded in the only responsible and appropriate way possible. “Ask your father,” I said.

As the big day drew closer, I had a fair idea of some of the songs in store. Not only could a little voice be heard singing to himself in the lead up, but every time I played my Spotify list in the car, he’d excitedly announce, “Oh, we’re singing that too”. Naturally, I quietly and humbly congratulated myself on being an excellent mother, introducing her children to the sort of musical repertoire that an excellent mother might do. Once I’d fast forwarded past a particularly angry sounding Eminem, that is.

There’s something hugely emotional about listening to the innocent sound of children’s voices singing in unison, and watching them dance excitedly in their rows

No matter how many times you have been to the Peace Proms, it never fails to take your breath away. The children, along with teachers, SNAs and helpers, had already spent several hours in the venue before the show began. But still their excitement was palpable as the adults arrived. Trying to pick out your child, when he’s sitting among two and a half thousand others, is no mean feat. But it turns out that having a fabulous mop of curls not only makes you easier to spot for your own parents, it also means you can be used as a child-type landmark for the parents of other children in your class. “Found him” laughed the WhatsApp messages, as other parents seated around the venue placed their sons by proximity to mine.

The great thing about the Peace Proms is that it caters for everyone, including us parents who are used to spending Saturday nights in front of the telly, debating whether wrestling the cork out of the wine counts as cardio, and lamenting a misspent youth. So, when the orchestra started belting out classics such as No Limits, Children, Maniac 2000 and Rhythm is a Dancer, we lost the run of ourselves, and the dodgy dance moves that followed subtly separated the Millennials from the Gen Xers and even the Boomers in the audience.

And that definitely counted as cardio.

There’s something hugely emotional about listening to the innocent sound of children’s voices singing in unison, and watching them dance excitedly in their rows. Even more so when you know it’s your last time.

The show closed to their anthem of John Farnham’s The Voice. “We’re all someone’s daughter. We’re all someone’s son,” the song goes. “We’re not going to sit in silence. We’re not going to live with fear,” the children chorus. And you hope that if they take nothing else from the show, they remember this.

Thanks for the magical memories, Peace Proms.

I’m not crying. You are.

Oh no, it turns out, we all are.