A devilishly good night

CAF Review: The Devil's in the Dance Hall

The wages of sin is dance, The wages of sin is jazz,’ reads the leaflet handed out by a disapproving priest on entering Cavan Town Hall last Sunday, May 17 to this year’s Cavan Arts Festival headliner, ‘The Devil’s in the Dance Hall’ by Edwina Guckian.

Walking into the auditorium, you are immediately transported back to the dancehalls of 1930s Ireland as attendees stepped out in their finest clothing from the era and waited along the wall for the music to start.

The Gralton Big Band kicked off around 8pm as actors and Áirc Damhsa dancers emerged from the crowd and encouraged everyone to hold shoulders and join into one long line that shuffled around the room.

The lights were low, the music was sweeping people off their feet and it wasn’t long before inhibitions were released and everyone was dancing freely.

Accompanying the band on stage was Edwina, whose face was shadowed under a dim light as she directed the crowd.

Strangers became friends as couples of two became circles of eight, set dancing, jiving and polkaing around the floor.

Lines were formed as couples took turns spinning and creating arches for others to run under.

There were even a few rounds of 'Shoe the Donkey' thrown in for good measure.

“The year is 1932,” Edwina announces, recalling the story of Jimmy Gralton from Effrinagh, Co Leitrim, whose hall was burned down on Christmas Eve 1932 after receiving significant backlash from the Catholic Church.

The hall had been full every night with bands “just like” the Gralton Big Band and with people coming from outside the parish and county; “scoundrels of the lowest sort,” Edwina quotes from the Leitrim Observer at the time.

Before Christmas, Edwina and eight other people bought the site to rebuild Gralton’s hall.

“Hopefully, the next time you’re dancing with the devil is in Effrinagh,” she says to much applause as the dancing continues again.

Introducing the ‘romantic interlude’, Edwina later told the story of Johnny McGivern, who returned from America in the roaring '20s and built the Ballroom of Romance in Glenfarne. She recalled that a man had to ask a woman to dance during this time or would be asked to leave.

This time, however, the interlude applied to men and women. Couples danced closely around the floor in what proved to be one of the only slow dances on the night.

As the night went on, the side door was opened to let air in and a continuous stream of people made their way to the bar and back for water and minerals.

In the midst of all the dancing, you would easily forget you were in the middle of a show.

It was quite the surprise then, when Seamus O’Rourke playing local guard John, banging a milk drum in tempered condemnation, came barging into the centre of the hall followed by Fr Joe, played by Darragh Scannell, who had been lingering dismissively around the front door.

“We didn’t fight for jazz to take over this country like blight, what’s wrong with our own music and culture?” he roars, furiously waving his baton and banging the drum almost meditatively.

He enters into a heated debate with his daughter Eileen, played by Roseanne Lynch, who wants to emigrate for America despite him having promised her to local man Mick O’Brien.

In an act of surprising defiance, Fr Joe intervenes and dissipates the row, much to John’s dismay, coming from a clergyman.

“I deliver the message, I don’t have to believe it,” Fr Joe assures, to much enjoyment as the crowd disperses and the dancing resumes for the last time.

The Gralton Big Band ended the night with a spectacularly lively version of Eileen Óg as the crowd finally caught their breath after more than three hours of ceol agus craic.