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Roseland, Jetland, Cloudland, and Beyond:Irish Showbands and Economic Change, 1958–1975 Rebecca S. Miller In 1962, Des Hopkins, a young jazz and pop drummer living in England, placed an advertisement in the Irish Independent’s dance band column: “Irish-born drummer. At present with . . . English Dixieland. Requires position with Irish showband.” Shortly thereafter, the replies started rolling in. Hopkins recalls, I got a reply from the Clefonaires Showband in Sligo, who offered me 11 pounds a week. I got a reply from Jack Browery’s showband in Cork, who offered me 11 pounds, 10 shillings a week. . . . There was four or five replies . . . anyway I took up the offer from Dave Dixon’s Dixonaire Showband in Clones, County Monaghan, who offered me a whopping 13 pounds a week, and that was . . . too good to refuse in those days. . . . So, my parents put me on the train with a bag and it was quite a reverse really ’cause everyone at the time was saying goodbye from Ireland [and] going to England to emigrate.1 Like many young Irish in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Des Hopkins was on the move—though as he notes, in reverse: with almost endemic unemployment throughout Ireland at the time, thousands of young Irish were seeking work in England, and to a lesser extent, the United States. But Hopkins saw a specific opportunity in Ireland that he could not find in England in the nascent, but growing, showband scene in which a young but experienced drummer could make a generous living. The scene that Hopkins and countless other young musicians joined was a specifically Irish musical response to American and British rock ’n’ roll and pop music. Showband music emerged in Northern Ireland in the mid-1950s and within a short time, swept across Ireland. This dance music ignited Ireland’s youth and for the next two decades, would serve as the primary popular cultural expression in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Showband musicians aimed to keep their audiences entertained and dancing; to do so, they learned the newest hits from American and British radio broadcasts and brought these sounds, as well as [End Page 77] provocative choreographies, to audiences of two thousand or more. These stage performances riveted Irish youth, dismayed parish priests, and ultimately revolutionized popular entertainment in Ireland. With an estimated eight hundred groups crisscrossing Ireland in their vans to perform in venues ranging from small parish dance halls to cavernous dance halls up to six nights a week during the peak years, the showband phenomenon quickly became its own industry. This meteoric rise of the showband scene mirrored various social and economic changes afoot in Ireland. Indeed, the sustained popularity of showband music was made possible, in part, by these larger societal and economic shifts. But the relationship was a two-way street: the showband industry itself also substantially contributed to kickstarting what had been a weak and stagnant Irish economy. Although the performance practice of showbands was in most ways unique to its Irish context, the music was derived almost exclusively from non-Irish aesthetics and styles. As such, showband music was a hybrid cultural expression that successfully negotiated the tensions between international origins on the one hand, and local practice and consumption on the other. This negotiation also reflected Ireland’s economic tensions, which ultimately led to the rejection of an inward-looking, protectionist economic policy in favor of structural changes and trade agreements that looked toward a broader engagement with Europe. Showbands introduced a new musical aesthetic that differed radically from the sit-down dance orchestras that had—until that point—dominated the country’s dance halls and ballrooms. A typical 1940s Irish dance orchestra ranged from six to sixteen players who sat while playing, and read from arranged parts placed on music stands. From all reports, dance orchestra members rarely looked up from their music to watch the audience. There was little improvisation and virtually no swing. In contrast, showband musicians, beginning with the renowned Clipper Carlton from Strabane, County Tyrone, jettisoned notated music and music stands. Liberated from the printed sheet music, showband musicians stood while playing, making eye contact with their dancing audiences, and felt...
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