Irish showband

The Irish Showband (seó-bhanna) was a dance band format popular in Ireland from the 1950s to the 1980s, with its peak in the 1960s. These bands typically featured seven to ten members, including a rhythm section, a brass section with various combinations of trumpet, saxophone, and trombone, and were fronted by lead singers, sometimes engaging in comedy skits. Their repertoire spanned rock and roll, country and western, dixieland jazz, big band tunes, Irish Céilí dances, Latin, folk, and more. Showbands were noted for their live energy, chart-topping covers, and sometimes choreographed performances. Originally touring within Ireland, successful bands later performed in Britain, the US, Canada, and on the German nightclub circuit and U.S. military bases in Europe.

1940s–1950s: Big Band Era
In the 1940s and 1950s "orchestras" were popular in Ireland. These were dance bands usually with ten to fifteen musicians, and sometimes more. They wore dress suits and dickey bows. Often there would be a community brass band based in the town where the orchestra came from and the orchestra members would have learned to play instruments in this brass band. They sat down and read sheet music from stands.

Instrumental music was to the fore providing the backdrop to a long night's dancing which could be up to five hours long or more (e.g., 9 PM to 2 AM).

Amplification was limited in the early days, just one microphone was used so the vocalist could be heard above the large band. As technology improved and became more available, the bands started using it, using more microphones for each section alongside more powerful amplifiers and larger loudspeakers.

Big bands turn into showbands
As singing and singers became more popular and instrumental tunes less popular, the orchestras downsized and morphed into showbands, going from eight or ten brass down to three or four brass. The Maurice Mulcahy Orchestra went from fifteen members, five saxophones, four trumpets, one trombone, rhythm section and a singer in the early sixties to ten members in the early seventies, which included two singers but still held five brass, four saxophones and one trumpet, which would have been a large band for the seventies.

There were a few bands that changed their name from dance bands and orchestras to 'Bandshow' before calling themselves 'Showbands'. For example, The Jimmy Wiley Orchestra changed its name to The Jimmy Wiley Bandshow and then to The Jimmy Wiley Showband.

Dave Glover renamed his group to the Dave Glover Showband in 1955, pioneering the use of the word "showband"; he chose the name because he wanted to indicate that their act incorporated both music and skits.

Strabane's Clipper Carlton are credited with being the first to incorporate a 'show' in the middle of their act, 'Duke Box Saturday Night' where they imitated the hits and singers of the day. Fronted by Fergus O'Hagan, they were originally a touring Dance Orchestra. They later became popular in Britain and on the U.S. and Canadian Irish club circuit.

Showbands
Brendan Bowyer, Tom Dunphy and the Royal Showband from Waterford toured professionally around 1958, and became a crowd-drawing success. They were managed by the promoter T.J. Byrne and were the first such band to have a record enter the Irish charts, "Katie Daly", sung by Dunphy. Soon after, Brendan Bowyer had a hit with "Kiss Me Quick", a song taken from an Elvis Presley album. Many would consider Brendan Bowyer to be the King of the Showband era, not least of which was due to his powerful & fantastic voice, handsome good looks coupled with his energetic dance moves on stage.

The Capitol Showband released the first showband L.P. record in 1962, 'Presenting Ireland's Premier Showband, Envoy Records, VOY 9144.

The Freshmen from Ballymena, Antrim, led by Billy Brown and Derek Dean, combined to produce harmonies on their covers of hits by The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.

Dickie Rock performed mainly big ballads. First singing with Dublin's Strykers, Blackbirds, Echoes and Melochords, he became a star with The Miami Showband, and later represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1966.

At its height in the mid-1960s, there were as many as 800 full and part-time bands travelling the country. The business as a whole employed many thousands of musicians, support staff and managers.

Embracing rock and soul
A second wave of bands emerged in the late sixties and early seventies with personnel coming mostly from the beat-groups scene. They young proponents of a rock, blues and soul style. These bands included The Dreams, The Real McCoy, The Arrows and The Chessmen. They were most popular in urban areas, while Country and Western leaning bands were generally more popular in the rural areas of the country. Johnny McEvoy and Danny Doyle started out as folk singers but changed to showbands in the 70's. They subsequently returned to the folk scene after a relatively short period.

Decline of the showbands
By the mid-1970s the phenomenon had peaked, and was in decline. A number of factors contributed to their drop in popularity, including the advent of upscale discothèque, the opening of hotel music lounges and cabaret rooms with alcohol licenses, and changing musical tastes. The big bands started employing smaller bands, known as relief bands, to play before them. People often stayed in the pub until the main band was about to come on stage. It got harder and harder to try and draw people out of the pubs and in to the ballrooms. Bands tried changing names and coming up with gimmicks to try to attract people.

Some of the bigger bands started demanding a guaranteed fee no matter what the attendance would be. Some even demanded a percentage of the door takings from the ballroom operator, the amount depending on how popular the band were. It became riskier for ballroom operators to run dances and make a profit with falling attendances and increased fee demands from bands.

In July 1975 members of the Ulster Volunteer Force murdered three members of The Miami Showband, Fran O'Toole, Tony Geraghty and Brian McCoy and wounded two others, Des McAlea and Stephen Travers. The killings, which occurred as the band was returning from a show in Banbridge in Northern Ireland, became known as the Miami Showband killings. Cross-border band touring dropped significantly as a result and this also hastened the decline of the showbands. Of the bands that did not break up entirely, many reduced their numbers and revamped into small outfits playing locally.

Ballrooms and dance halls
The city ballrooms were often purpose built and lavish. Many rural dance halls, on the other hand, were simple buildings at the edge of the town. Dance halls in smaller towns and villages would host a dance once or twice a month. The fans often travelled miles from the surrounding countryside to see their favourite band.

A chain of venues in the midlands was operated by Albert Reynolds, who would later become Taoiseach of the Republic. Associated Ballrooms was owned by mining magnate Con Hynes. The Lucey brothers had large ballrooms in Cork. In the North East, the Adelphi ballroom, owned by Dee O'Kane and Jimmy Hamilton in Dundalk, attracted audiences from both sides of the border. Summer dancing was held in marquee tents during parish carnivals throughout the country. Mineral Bars dispensed hot beverages and soft drinks. Ballrooms and dance halls did not sell alcoholic beverages. Alcohol sales remained the prerogative of the local pub, who then began to build extensions onto pubs and operate their own disco or cabaret show.

Legacy
Various internationally successful Irish singers and musicians began their careers in showbands, including Van Morrison, Henry McCullough, Mick Hanly, Rory Gallagher, Eric Bell, Eric Wrixon and Colm Wilkinson.

The 1987 Roddy Doyle novel The Commitments is about a contemporary group of unemployed Irish youths who start a soul band in the manner of the late-1960s Irish showbands. The novel spawned a popular 1991 film of the same name, which in turn led to a touring band, The Stars from the Commitments, and a 2013 musical, The Commitments.

The 2005 Irish TV movie Showbands and its 2006 sequel, Showbands II, both starred Liam Cunningham as the manager of a struggling Irish showband in the mid-1960s.

In 2010, Ireland's postal service, An Post, issued a set of four commemorative stamps depicting four of Ireland's biggest showbands: The Drifters, The Freshmen, The Miami Showband and The Royal Showband. An An Post spokesman said that the showbands "rocked Irish society from its postwar depression".

In March 2019, Ardal O'Hanlon presented a BBC Four documentary about the showband phenomenon.