I'm not a sinner. I'm widowed, but at 87 nobody living wants to dance with me. (:-() Dalton O'Sullivan San Francisco, CA -----Original Message----- >From: Bill Gawne via >Sent: Sep 23, 2015 2:14 PM >To: Riobard O' Dwyer , beara@rootsweb.com >Subject: Re: [BEARA] Dance Halls. > >Hello Riobard, all, > >If dancing is a sin, I confess I'm a sinner. I'll be sinning later on this >evening, and again on Friday evening, and again Saturday. Nor will my >sinning be only with one woman! I'll be sinning with a different woman >every time the music starts. > >Thanks be to the merciful Lord who forgave our ancestors their sinful ways, >and watches over us all still. > >Bill Gawne > >On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Riobard O' Dwyer via >wrote: > >> Recenty, I read an article in the paper from a Paula Vallely from >> Keady. Co. Armagh, saying that she was researching about dance halls >> in rural Iraland during the 1930s, 1940s, and the 1950s. This is the >> answer I wrote her back: >> Dear Paula, >> My parents' dance hall in the (Ardgroom) Village was >> opened circa Christmas 1936. The Priests here were very much against >> dancing at the time. One of them used ask people going to Confession >> if they were dancing in my parents' hall on the previous Sunday night. >> If they admitted it. they would not be given absolution by him, as he >> looked upon dancing as a mortal sin. Such rubbish !! Once, he walked >> into the centre of the dance floor., and spread out his hands as if to >> "clear" the hall of the "sinners". Many of the local people used be >> walking up and down the village road outside the dance hall, afraid of >> their lives of the damnation of the Priest if they went in. I >> remember, as a young lad of about 10., sitting on the 2nd set of the >> top left of the Church during Mass, and listening to my father and >> mother being denounced from the Altar by the Priest for not closing >> the dance at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night ----- dances used be held early >> here on a Sunday night. One time, my father held a dance to 12 o'clock >> on a Christmas night, and the Parish Priest went to court to stop him. >> It used cost 4 pence to go to the dances in those days; later, it went >> up to 6 pence; and, later again, to a shilling. The dances in the hall >> were the Set Dance (to Irish traditional music), the Waltz, the >> 2-step, the Barn Dance, and the "Stack of Barley". The dance band >> consisted of my father playing the "button-key" accordeon, and my >> mother playing the fiddle/violin, and sometimes the concertina. There >> was no such thing as amplification. People kept up as near as he/she >> could to the stage. The men used stand on one side of the hall, and >> the girls on the other side. During the dance, there used be what was >> called the Ladies' Choice ----- when a lady had the privilege of going >> across the dance floor and asking the man of her choice for a dance. >> Sometimes, the man of her choice would feel he was "fixed up" after >> that, and would, later in the week, ask her out for a "date". The >> girls wore ordinary-length dresses ----- not like the "up to their >> ar__s" that some of them wear nowadays. Before their dance hall of >> 1936, my father built a very small hall at the top of the village, up >> beside the nearby river, when my parents came back home from America. >> It was after the Civil War, and one night during a dance (I heard it >> said), when my father and mother were playing their music up on the >> "stage", a row/fight started between two men in the middle of the >> dance-floor ----- one belonging to Fianna Fail, and the other from the >> opposite party, Fine Gael. My father jumped down off the "stage", >> knocked out the two of them with his fists; then jumped up on the >> "stage", and continued playing for the dance. As the old people used >> say: "Them were the days" !! I hope that this will help you with your >> research. Best wishes from Riobard (=the Gaelic for Robert) O'Dwyer. >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >> in the subject and the body of the message >> > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Are you really sure about that? If I lived closer... Holland, Houlihan, Hampston, O'Sullivan Arcata CA On Sep 24, 2015, at 12:59 PM, Outlook Team via wrote: > > I'm not a sinner. I'm widowed, but at 87 nobody living wants to dance with > me. (:-() > Dalton O'Sullivan San Francisco, CA > > -----Original Message----- >> From: Bill Gawne via >> Sent: Sep 23, 2015 2:14 PM >> To: Riobard O' Dwyer , beara@rootsweb.com >> Subject: Re: [BEARA] Dance Halls. >> >> Hello Riobard, all, >> >> If dancing is a sin, I confess I'm a sinner. I'll be sinning later on > this >> evening, and again on Friday evening, and again Saturday. Nor will my >> sinning be only with one woman! I'll be sinning with a different woman >> every time the music starts. >> >> Thanks be to the merciful Lord who forgave our ancestors their sinful > ways, >> and watches over us all still. >> >> Bill Gawne >> >> On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Riobard O' Dwyer via >> wrote: >> >>> Recenty, I read an article in the paper from a Paula Vallely from >>> Keady. Co. Armagh, saying that she was researching about dance halls >>> in rural Iraland during the 1930s, 1940s, and the 1950s. This is the >>> answer I wrote her back: >>> Dear Paula, >>> My parents' dance hall in the (Ardgroom) Village was >>> opened circa Christmas 1936. The Priests here were very much against >>> dancing at the time. One of them used ask people going to Confession >>> if they were dancing in my parents' hall on the previous Sunday night. >>> If they admitted it. they would not be given absolution by him, as he >>> looked upon dancing as a mortal sin. Such rubbish !! Once, he walked >>> into the centre of the dance floor., and spread out his hands as if to >>> "clear" the hall of the "sinners". Many of the local people used be >>> walking up and down the village road outside the dance hall, afraid of >>> their lives of the damnation of the Priest if they went in. I >>> remember, as a young lad of about 10., sitting on the 2nd set of the >>> top left of the Church during Mass, and listening to my father and >>> mother being denounced from the Altar by the Priest for not closing >>> the dance at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night ----- dances used be held early >>> here on a Sunday night. One time, my father held a dance to 12 o'clock >>> on a Christmas night, and the Parish Priest went to court to stop him. >>> It used cost 4 pence to go to the dances in those days; later, it went >>> up to 6 pence; and, later again, to a shilling. The dances in the hall >>> were the Set Dance (to Irish traditional music), the Waltz, the >>> 2-step, the Barn Dance, and the "Stack of Barley". The dance band >>> consisted of my father playing the "button-key" accordeon, and my >>> mother playing the fiddle/violin, and sometimes the concertina. There >>> was no such thing as amplification. People kept up as near as he/she >>> could to the stage. The men used stand on one side of the hall, and >>> the girls on the other side. During the dance, there used be what was >>> called the Ladies' Choice ----- when a lady had the privilege of going >>> across the dance floor and asking the man of her choice for a dance. >>> Sometimes, the man of her choice would feel he was "fixed up" after >>> that, and would, later in the week, ask her out for a "date". The >>> girls wore ordinary-length dresses ----- not like the "up to their >>> ar__s" that some of them wear nowadays. Before their dance hall of >>> 1936, my father built a very small hall at the top of the village, up >>> beside the nearby river, when my parents came back home from America. >>> It was after the Civil War, and one night during a dance (I heard it >>> said), when my father and mother were playing their music up on the >>> "stage", a row/fight started between two men in the middle of the >>> dance-floor ----- one belonging to Fianna Fail, and the other from the >>> opposite party, Fine Gael. My father jumped down off the "stage", >>> knocked out the two of them with his fists; then jumped up on the >>> "stage", and continued playing for the dance. As the old people used >>> say: "Them were the days" !! I hope that this will help you with your >>> research. Best wishes from Riobard (=the Gaelic for Robert) O'Dwyer. >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes >>> in the subject and the body of the message >>> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message From the... Music Studio of Susan Twomey 89 - 12th Street Arcata, CA 95521 tel. 707-826-0920