THE MUSIC will sound again this month in a remote village dancehall made famous as The Ballroom of Romanceby author William Trevor.
Margo, Daniel O’Donnell’s singing sister, used to do her school homework in the 1960s behind the stage of The Rainbow ballroom at Glenfarne, Co Leitrim, while waiting for her turn to sing with the Keynotes band as they set up equipment.
Big Tom was given his first major dancehall chance and named his band The Mainliners at the venue.
Margo, on a holiday break in Florida, said yesterday: “The Rainbow was one of the good memories for me, but I was too young to know a lot about the romance that was going on. I was only 13 when I first sang there.”
A €500,000 renovation of the centre has been under way during the past year and is expected to be completed in autumn.
It will hold a hall of memorabilia recalling the great showband days when the only drink at the bar was a cup of tea or a mineral.
The work of John McGivern, a returned US emigrant who opened the ballroom in 1934, will also be recalled in a new museum at the centre.
The building, now run by Glenfarne Community Development Trust under a lease from the parish council, is set for a night of nostalgia on May 19th when a restoration fundraising CD will be launched, featuring 20 of Ireland’s showband legends who have performed at The Rainbow down through the years.
Among the stars on the CD will be Margo, her younger brother Daniel, Big Tom, Larry Cunningham, Susan McCann, Philomena Begley, Paddy Cole and others from The Rainbow’s hit years in the 1960s and 1970s.
The CD will also have 20-year-old Nathan Carter singing a single recording the history of The Rainbow written by John Farry, who lives just over the border from Glenfarne. Local historian Gerry Finneran (75), who worked for many years in The Rainbow, prompted John to write The Rainbow in Glenfarne.
Mr Finneran, a cousin of original owner McGivern, said: “What I remember most is how everybody dressed. The men always had their best suits and a shirt and tie. If they weren’t properly dressed they wouldn’t get in.”
Nathan Carter will be joined on stage by stars who sang for his parents and grandparents. Paschal Mooney, a country DJ before he was a senator, will be the MC and Fr Brian D’Arcy will be VIP guest.
Glenfarne Trust chairman Seán McDermott said: “Since The Rainbow became world-famous through William Trevor’s book and the subsequent BBC film, tourists file by to take photographs. The idea of a museum and a tourism centre is to persuade them to spend a little more time in the village.”
Trevor was inspired to write the story when driving by and being struck by the sign over the entrance.
With the arrival of electricity to rural Ireland, McGivern was able to abandon the tilly and other oil lamps and refurbish the hall which he named The Rainbow, with the subtitle The Ballroom of Romance, in 1952.