The Ballroom of Romance

“Come, let me take you to the Ballroom of Romance….”

Did you hear what’s happened to the dance hall, the Ballroom of Romance? Come on now you must know it! It’s the big dance hall that looks more like a barn or a warehouse. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it was once used as a barn! You must know it! Where is it? Why, it’s just off the main road to the west. You can’t miss it! It’s got ‘The Ballroom of Romance’ in big black letters above the door and there’s a rainbow leaping over the letters. Mind you it’s probably all faded away by now.

God, I could tell you some stories about that place. The things we all got up to! First time I went there was for my 18th in 66’, I’d got a sleeveless polka dot mini-dress especially for it! I still have it. It’s probably up in the loft somewhere but don’t tell your Dad; he’ll want me to try it on! Not that it would still fit me! Anyway, you know what? That was the very night Sullivan showed up. Now, he was the man that built the place. Well, he didn’t build it, his workmen did. He sat in his warm office drinking tea. He wasn’t a local man by any means in fact he was Glasgow-Irish and you know what they’re like – as hard as frozen nails and then some! He had his hand in everything had Sullivan. Property, bars, restaurants, haulage, – you name it. He’d made many enemies, but he was that type of man, he was tough and didn’t care. Coarse and vulgar, you know? What brought him out here I don’t know. There was rumours going round he’d dabbled in the vice trade in Glasgow, you know? Whores and drugs! Of course you’d know; you’re a student!

There’d been an awful row between him and the parish priest at the time. Who was that again? Ah, yes it was Father Moore, he was a bit of a sod himself but compared to Sullivan he was a saint! It was said he was unhappy about Sullivan building a ballroom; a den of immorality – that’s what he’d called it. Ireland was different then, a lot more conservative but Sullivan had money, lots of money and then as now those with money always prevail and get their way. To rub salt into the wound he chose a site not one-eighth of a mile from the church so that every day Father Moore could see and hear the diggers and the labourers putting it all together. Now, I don’t know if this next bit is true but I’m inclined to believe it was. Father Moore gave off to them that they were building too close to the where the old church had stood, the one that the English destroyed in the 1600’s. Apparently there were even graves dating back to God knows when. Sullivan didn’t take kindly to this intervention and not long after Father Moore’s housekeeper found a dead kitten stuffed in the letter-box of the Parochial House. Father Moore went promptly over to the building site to confront Sullivan but he soon ran home again. Sullivan apparently leapt into a bulldozer and threatened to demolish the effing priest’s house if he stuck his effing nose in his effing business again. The police were summoned but it took them the best part of a day to get up there, you know what they’re like. In those days the Priest’s word carried its weight in Gold but when the Gardai questioned Sullivan’s men they kept quiet. He’d brought them all down from Derry for the work you see and you know what Derry ones are like. So Father Moore was left to fume and give off from the pulpit but he’d been doing that even before Sullivan came.

Now, I’m digressing a bit. I was talking about my first time there. Actually now that I think about it, it was everyone’s first time there. It opened on my birthday, Friday the 4th of March, 1966. Me, Lizzie and Maggie; the three of us went together but we knew nearly everyone there. Except of course, Sullivan. The hall was packed but wherever he went it was like Moses parting the Red Sea. And, my God, wasn’t he like the President of the United States? In his fancy suit and surrounded by tall, well-dressed lackeys who were like his very own secret service bodyguards! He was civil enough mind you and even wished me a happy birthday but that was the only time I ever spoke to him.

His investment really paid off. The Ballroom became a sensation and every Friday and Saturday night young ones from places as far away as Sligo, Enniskillen and even Armagh were flocking to it! Our gang went nearly every week for the dances. That’s where I met your Dad so if it hadn’t been for Mr Sullivan you mightn’t be alive today! But before I met him I’ll tell you this. Really it’s a sad story. There was a young fellow called Daniel, Danny we called him. He came alone to the dances and assorted with no one in particular, he just liked to drink and dance. God forgive me because he was, what you’d call, a bit of a simpleton. He lived alone with his father and did a few odd jobs hereabouts. He became quite a popular figure at the ballroom for he’d just dance around like an eejit for all he was worth and he’d drink pint after pint and then let loose on the dance floor again. We’d all cheer him on!

But someone as full of life as Danny would inevitably fall foul of someone as dour as Sullivan. I’d seen him scowling at him from his favoured snug in the corner more than once. Then Danny, after a boisterous rendition of the twist, collided with Sullivan and spilt a pint all over him. Sullivan appeared outwardly calm as he wiped the stout off his suit while Danny was energetically apologetic. But the boy was soon sent packing. He arrived the next Friday fired up for a night of dancing but no sooner had he set foot inside when he was quietly informed by one of Sullivan’s hirelings that the management had invited him to leave. Poor Danny didn’t fully understand. For him the word ‘invite’ bore no ironic connotations. Only after they’d roughed him up a bit did he get the message. Even after that we saw him a few times hiding by a tree across the road looking forlornly at the revellers as they entered the hall. Danny never came back after that. Not long after they found him in a ditch. The Gardai said it was a hit and run driver who did it. Danny’s father died heartbroken not too long after. Had he not been barred from the hall Danny would never have been walking on the road at that time. But this was probably the least of Sullivan’s sins.

There were rumours flying around that Sullivan was a bit of a Mary-Anne, or an Oscar Wilde. I never saw him with a woman it’s true but I put that down to the fact that most of us were terrified of him. To be honest I don’t care what he was one way or the other but a group of lads from up the country latched onto these rumours and decided to have a bit of fun. They were about six of them and they were led by a lad called Jacko and his mate Malachy. Now, in those days nearly everyone had a cousin or other relative in America and a lot of us harboured hopes to go there ourselves one day so they organised a 4th of July ball, complete with American food, buntings, the stars and stripes and lots of balloons. Apparently Jacko and his gang had got hold of three of these balloons, two round and one long, and tied them together in such a way as to resemble a man’s you-know-what. They deposited it in Sullivan’s snug before the big man arrived along with a note that read, “Happy 4th O’ July Sullivan ye’ bugger!” I’ll never forget the look of utter fury on that round face of his! You’ll often see cartoon characters turn scarlet when they get angry and that’s just the colour Sullivan turned when he discovered what was inside his snug that night. One of his cohorts was an aul’ lankey devil we called Slim. I can’t remember his real name. Anyway Slim ordered the band to stop playing and had the bouncers lock us in! Then he held up the balloons in the form of a man’s you-know-what and demanded that the pranksters own up. The hall erupted in laughter. We thought he was joking! What did he expect by going on stage holding a massive inflatable willie? I think I was laughing more at what I thought was his ability to keep a straight face. Anyway it became obvious that he wasn’t joking when the red-faced Sullivan joined him and eyed us with those awful brown eyes of his. We all seemed to shuffle away from Jacko and co. He and his pals were the only ones who hadn’t stopped tittering. It didn’t help matters when Malachy, I think it was, not so much broke but shattered the silence when he yapped out, “Come on Sullivan, ya big poof ye!”

I distinctly recall the heavy thud of Sullivan leaping from the stage onto the dance floor. Jacko et al prepared to defend their friend from the charging bull but the bouncers soon surrounded them. They were pulled, pushed, punched and kicked out of the hall. Some time later I heard one of them got a broken nose or finger from the fight. Needless to say this put a dampener on the rest of the night and when the band played ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ there was only a handful of people left. Everyone gave Sullivan an even wider berth after that but every week the crowds still went. Two people who would never go again though were Jack and Malachy. They were found hanging from a tree on some farmland that October. Some gossiped that it was a suicide pact, others said murder. If the police suspected Sullivan they did nothing. Both of them were orphans with no close family or money to speak of so the matter was soon forgotten about.

Meanwhile Sullivan’s feud with Father Moore continued. Nearly every week at Mass the priest would calmly express his disapproval of what he called the “floozies and the posers” who traipsed to the ugly “edifice” just up the road and whenever he mentioned it he would nod his head and jab a finger in its direction. Yet many felt his rants were more of an indirect attack on Sullivan himself. We all knew Father Moore was fond of a drink and a flutter on the horses and truly there was nothing wrong with that. Had a more benign man built the hall and enlisted Father Moore’s friendship and flattered him accordingly there would be no doubt that the priest would have joined the revellers now and again. But Sullivan had stood up to his ego and this could not be left to die. Around this time I also remember hearing another of Sullivan’s sins.

He always drove a dark ugly car. I think it was a big jaguar. And the speed he drove it! You know how bad the roads are around here nowadays. Well back then they were a hundred times worse but this mattered not to Sullivan. He’d belt along them at seventy miles an hour and more I’m sure. The roads were also much narrower in those days but he’d never slow down. One day Father Moore was driving along when up ahead looms Sullivan’s rig hurtling towards him. Father Moore flashed his lights and blared his horn to no avail and in the nick of time he swings his car into the hedge by the roadside where it got stuck. Sullivan didn’t even slow down. Following this each time Sullivan tore past the parochial house he would sink his horn, intent on reminding Father Moore of the incident. We all wondered if Father Moore could ever find it within him to forgive Sullivan. Either that or he was begging the bishop for a transfer!

We’ll come back to them shortly because before I forget I have to tell you the oddest thing that happened to me in the Ballroom of Romance. It would have been the summer of 1967. Now it was a very inclement summer that year, we’d lots of rain and wind pouring in from the west off the Atlantic and generally the temperature was fairly cool. One Saturday night in June I was there with my usual gang. The hall’s heating was never up to much especially in the winter but for some reason I remember it being very humid in the hall that night. It’s funny how you remember details like that. We were drinking away and keeping an eye out for any eligible fellows when I noticed a young man I’d never seen there before. He was alone which was very unusual for you always went with at least one person but he seemed happy enough and looked very smart and dashing in his black suit and tie. I was immediately drawn to him cos he gave off such warmth and charisma not to mention confidence. ‘Right’, thought I, ‘I’m getting him before Maggie sees him’, so I half-sauntered, half-danced over to where he was. It didn’t talk long before he started chatting me up. At that age you fall for their pleasantries and compliments and wry humour and I was no different. He bought me a drink, we had a dance and he spoke so seductively of nothing in particular.
“Do you want to out for some fresh air?” he asked me in such a way that it be sinful for me to refuse.
‘God yes!’ I thought.
A man didn’t really want fresh air when he invited you outside. Strangely, when I was with him out there the air didn’t fell any cooler. I confess that my own temperature must have risen when he took me by the hand and led me over to the car park. We talked away for a good while and to be honest I can’t remember what we even talked about but I seem to recall that I told him a lot about myself while he didn’t divulge a thing.
“I don’t even know your name,” I said to him.
“Neither do I!” he laughed.
He was a real tease and I was starting to think I’d taken up with a ner-do-well but I was still smitten with him and decided to give him another chance. Yet he went and blew it because before our conversation could continue he suddenly thrust his lips against mine. I was not that smitten with him. Strange to say but his lips were unnaturally warm and as for his breath? Yuck! I swear to you he must have been eating charcoal cos that’s what his gob smelt of! I pushed him back indignantly. He just laughed again.
“Are you one of them?” he asked.
“One of what?” I asked in turn.
“A church goer,” he said.
I was puzzled.
“I am,” I said.
He laughed again and walked away.
“It’s all a scam,” he shouted with his back to me. He went out of sight round the back of the hall. I was surprised and incredulous all at once. When I’d recovered I thought I’d give him a piece of my mind so I carefully tip-toed my way over the pot-holed car park in my precarious high heels and looked round the corner. He was gone. What a chancer! Leaving me out there on a freezing cold night! Such wasters were not uncommon at the ballroom but he was the strangest I’d ever met. He could go to Hell for all I care!

This occurred at a time when Sullivan had not been seen for some while. We’d all hoped he’d cleared off for good and whilst he was gone the hall seemed a much merrier place than usual. But sure enough the sound of his big car tearing along the roads was soon heard again. I don’t know where he’d been or what he’d been doing but it was suspected that perhaps he’d been lying low in relation to some wrong doing elsewhere. Nonetheless he was back and he’d brought Slim with him.

Really it’s no wonder he came back. The venue was as popular as ever and he was making good money. Word spread far and wide about the Ballroom of Romance and it fell on ears only slightly less unscrupulous as those of its owner. Animals compete for resources and when money’s at stake violent men are no different. Back then money was as scare as ice in the Sahara and even crime lords had trouble making ends meet. One could never know the whole story but parts of it trickled out in the papers afterwards. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years and it actually began with Father Moore.

The full story came out in drips and drabs but this is roughly what happened. Still reeling from his run-in with Sullivan I believe Father Moore planned his own dances to attract the more clean-living crowd. They would take place every week for a month in the church hall not too far away from the ballroom. Admission would be free of charge but there would be no alcohol. Revellers were therefore faced with a dilemma, go to a dry dancehall for free or pay for admission and drinks at the ballroom. Surprisingly many chose the former on the first night but they were mostly locals keen to placate Father Moore in a once-off diplomatic gesture. But there were other forces moving against Sullivan.

We all knew Gracey’s photo from the papers. They had dubbed him “the crime lord of Limerick” He’d been forced out of the rackets of that city and had presumably been looking around for a lucrative franchise to move in on. Now his attention turned north to the Ballroom of Romance as there was no doubt he had heard of its popularity. It was successful, profitable, fairly remote and away from the prying eyes of the law. If he assumed its owner was a weak-willed provincial wimp, ripe for easy extortion then he was sorely wrong. Gracey sent in reconnaissance to scout out his would-be new territory. A handful of men with Limerick accents were overheard in the locality and these stoic yet playful new comers attended the ballroom over the next few weeks. Something must have been said because an awful fist-fight erupted between one of them and Slim. He laid a series of solid blows on one of them but by the end Slim’s long face was dented with bruises. There was no clear winner from what I can recall and the Limerick ones were not seen again after that. My gang began to consider alternatives to the Ballroom of Romance. It was getting far too wild. This is why we opted to go Father Moore’s dance in the church hall and thank God we did!

Sullivan seemed to be fighting a war on two fronts. Word filtered back down to Gracey that his men had taken a beating while Father Moore was propagating his own dance throughout the district and further afield. Despite reservations Father Moore’s ball was, to begin with, not so bad mainly because there was, in contrary to what he had advertised, a curtailed amount of alcohol for sale. Turns out he had lied simply to avoid the local bishop finding out. With the wine and the beers flowing we were soon dancing in good spirits.

Just down the road the ballroom was filling up rapidly. According to a girl I know who went there that night there was no sign of either Sullivan or his man Slim but two of his lackeys named MacNiece and Burke were warming his snug for him. Those who cared to notice didn’t even think that much of Sullivan’s absence. I suppose he was on his way to the church hall at about the same time. Father Moore became aware of a mild disturbance at the door and he rushed out to see the elderly doorman, Seamie Roach, standing small and defiant as Sullivan and Slim loomed over him. Apparently they said they simply wanted to inform the crowd inside that there would be free drinks for the next hour at the ballroom. Seamie would have none of it and stood his ground. Sullivan calmly explained his plan to Father Moore who, already livid at the sight of Sullivan, nearly had a heart attack when he heard the man’s incredulous offer. Before things could turn uglier their attention was turned back down the road where the lights of the ballroom were clearly visible. The chill air carried with it a salvo of sudden noise. Yells were heard and a car’s tyres screeched as it swung onto the road and raced towards the church hall. A crowd gathered behind it watching it go. Sullivan and Slim seemed to know what was happening.
“The bastards!” hissed Sullivan as his bodyguard reached into his jacket pocket and dashed to the roadside. Slim didn’t get a chance to fire his gun. Dazzled by its bright headlights he misjudged the speed of the car and as he dived out of its way the driver anticipated his dodge and Slim’s long legs went under the wheels. The car belted on into the night.

Mayhem ensured. The dance-goers flocked in unison from the church hall to be greeted by the sight of mangled limbs, an enraged gangster and the mortified priest and Mr Roach. Sullivan howled and Father Moore was knocked to the ground. Rather than attending to his dying comrade Sullivan ran up the road to hear the news that two of his men had been shot at point blank range by an occupant of the same car that knocked down Slim. Presumably MacNiece and Burke had been mistaken for Sullivan and his right-hand man.

The police could ignore or overlook an accidental death or a rural suicide but this was murder. When a notorious racketeer in Gracey’s pay was found lifeless in a ditch near one of his boss’s drinking dens in Athlone Sullivan’s days were numbered. Perhaps he was being pursued by his enemies or just fleeing in the night to his native Glasgow when the accident happened. His battered Jaguar was found resting at the bottom of the lake in the Glenarc Valley on the main road north. The drop from the road is about four hundred feet.

The outspoken Father Moore was no doubt privately relieved when he got wind of this news. Sadly for him he was not around for much longer. His housekeeper found him sprawled over his breakfast one morning; his head in a bowl of cornflakes! He’d suffered a debilitating stroke and died in hospital in Dublin some weeks later. Word came back to us that it had been caused in part by the stress he’d endured ever since the Ballroom had been built years before.

If anyone thought the future now looked brighter for the Ballroom of Romance they were mistaken. A local businessman took it over and for the first time it actually felt like a genuinely safe place to visit. During this time I met your Dad there. But it was not gangsters or deranged priests that brought about the demise of the ballroom but the people it catered for. Young people far and wide were leaving the district, myself among them. Some were bound for the east, others to England, Canada, America and elsewhere and who can blame them? I certainly can’t blame you for leaving. This is a beautiful but often dreary place. We have only come back to retire.

So the ballroom continued to host patrons well into the early 70’s but it was now past its prime. It changed hands I don’t know how many times and was losing money as the shrinking population took its toll. It closed its doors for the last time in 1975.

I sigh when I think about it but even that wasn’t an end to the tragedy associated with that aul place. One summer’s night a young couple from the north were driving west for their honeymoon. Their car went off the road and it slammed right into the ballroom’s thick concrete walls. They had no chance God help them. But it didn’t end with that. A big Dublin developer hit upon the idea to refurbish it into a hotel or a conference centre or something like that. The year was 1983. Anyway, his men were working away inside when suddenly the old wooden floor gives way and collapses completely! Your cousin Rob was driving by at that very moment. He saw the commotion so stopped to lend a hand and he later told me what he saw. The hall was dark and filled with dust but it soon cleared and he sees a gaping hole spread across the floor in front of him. And in the pit, lying there in their coffins, is a horizontal row of grisly skeletons, twelve in all! Twelve! And down with them were two motionless workmen who’d fallen in with the floor. One of them was stone dead with a broken neck and the other died later in hospital from injuries sustained in the fall.

Holy God I’d never felt such guilt! To think that for all those years we’d been dancing, quite literally, on those poor people’s graves! They were solemnly removed and re-interned in the new graveyard. Questions were asked and eventually the hype died down but many, myself included, have never forgotten. Sullivan must have known about the graves and built the ballroom irregardless. Now, I’ve never read much into coincidences but when you count them; Danny, Jacko, Mal, Slim, MacNiece and Burke, Father Moore, Sullivan, the poor couple and the two unfortunate workmen makes twelve and matches the number of bodies found beneath the floor, and all of the former group died as a direct result of that dancehall being built in the first place. It makes me think, and call me a bit superstitious if you want to, but I wonder if forces other than human selfishness were at play. Forces that sought, as it were, to redress the balance. Twelve for twelve? Only God knows. I’m happy not to know! After that the developer pulled out and so the hall stood there abandoned and derelict, its paint flaking, its windows broken, open to the pounding of the elements and the cold years.

But wait! Sweet Jesus, I’ve almost forgotten why we were even talking about it! Did you hear what’s happened to the Ballroom of Romance? Your Dad’s after telling me when he got home tonight. He was driving past it and he says it’s all aglow. The flames are licking through it and it’s completely ablaze! Soon it will be gutted ash. The fire brigade? Well, it will take them an hour or more to get up here, there are no houses close to the fire that might be at risk and no one with a wise head will go near a burning building. If the hall still has an owner they won’t even care. Believe me. So, no, I won’t be calling the fire brigade and neither will you. Just let it burn.


© Ciaran McVeigh 2010