Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935

University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)

Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935Author(s): Gearid hAllmhurinSource: New Hibernia Review / Iris ireannach Nua, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 9-18Published by: University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20558031 .Accessed: 16/06/2013 10:18

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Gear?id ? hAllmhur?in

Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare

and the Dance Halls Act of 1935

The revolutionary state once envisaged by Patrick Pearse was nowhere to behold

during the first decade of Free State Ireland. The Anglo-Irish War and Irish Civil War had left much of the country with chronic social and economic problems. Yet, despite its structural defects, the

new state quickly won the overwhelming

support of merchants and shopkeepers, well-off farmers, clerics, and middle

class professionals, all of whom had a vested interest in the benefits of stability. It was not long before this bourgeois cadre, which had a long pedigree in Irish

history, sired a repressive Zeitgeist of social and cultural conservatism that was

to become an abiding hallmark of independent Ireland until well into the 1960s. As early as 1923, the new Free State government suggested its conventional

bent by passing the Censorship of Films Act. That measure censored films, most of them foreign, that were considered offensive to the conservative

mores

of the new Ireland. For the next two decades, lawmakers and the church hier

archy?aided by watchdog groups like the Irish Vigilance Society and the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland?shepherded their wayward flock from one

moral sanctuary to the next. In the spring of 1924, the Irish bishops in their

Lenten pastoral referred to the existence of shameful abuses in Irish social life.

Chief among them were women's fashions and immodest dress; drink, strikes

and lockouts; evil literature, theatrical performances, cinema exhibitions, and

"indecent" dancing. Such public pronouncements may well have been influ

enced by the rise in promiscuity, sexual crimes, and illegitimate births that had

reached disturbing levels in both urban and rural communities.1 By 1929, the

D?il had passed the Censorship of Publications Act, which was directed specif

ically against foreign magazines and books, most of them English. While not

explicitly directed against native writing, this act had the long-term effect of

ostracizing a generation of creative writers in Ireland, many of whom chose

exile rather than succumb to a climate of unbending censorship.

i. See Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times Book of the Century (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999), pp. 125-32.

NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW / IRIS ?IREANNACH NUA, 9:4 (WINTER / GEIMHREADH, 2005), ?-l8


Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935

By the end of the 1920s, a wide-ranging spyglass of inquisition had other sin ners in its scope. Though far from being a mouthpiece of the Catholic church in post-independence Ireland, even the Irish Times lamented the widespread

breakdown of moral values in the country. Its indignation was every bit as

forthright as that of the Catholic hierachy. In an editorial of March 2,1929, the

paper remarked that

The clergy, the judges and the police are in agreement concerning the baleful affect of drink and low dancing upon rural morals. Further restrictions on the

sale of drinks, a remorseless war on the poteen industry, the strict supervision of

dance halls and the banning (by law if need be) of all night dances would abol ish many inducements to sexual vice.2

Country house kitchens and crossroad platforms had been customary loca

tions of dancing in rural communities for generations. During the lean years of

the Economic War (1933-38), when cattle prices collapsed and Ireland's small farmers

struggled desperately to survive, country house dances were often used

to collect funds for destitute families. Referred to as "raffles" or "benefits" in

Clare, house dances were also used to raise money for soir?es, wren dances,

American wakes, and on rare occasions to collect funds for local priests home on

holidays from the foreign missions. Likewise, benefits were held to raise money for political groups, among them the IRA, which was undergoing radical change in the political and legislative upheaval of the 1930s. To supervise these sponta

neous gatherings, as the Irish Times suggested, was virtually impossible. Regard less of the improbability of the effort, however, country house dances generated

as much indignation among Ireland's moral watchdogs as did modern dancing,

which had crept into Ireland beneath the radar of the state in the 1920s. Modern dancing, generically referred to as "jazz" in Ireland at the time, had

been introduced by commercial recordings and returning immigrants during the wild years of the Roaring Twenties, and mirrored the changing social mores of the country at a time when American popular culture was steadily selling its

way across the Atlantic. Its snazzy menu of fox-trots, two-steps, and shimmy

shakes?not to mention "the sensual moan of the saxophone" and the loose

morals of flappers in high heels?all became prime targets in the pulpit-beat ing sermons of the 1920s and 1930s.3 As private and unlicensed dance halls

2. Cited in Helen Brennan, The Story of Irish Dance (Dingle: Brandon Press, 1999)? p-125. 3. Alistair Cooke, Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Knopf, 1973), p. 323. In describing the rad

ically new social mores ushered in by the Roaring Twenties in America, which were eventually

exported across the Atlantic, Cooke notes that "the 1920s brought on a drastic revolt against the pre war mores of gentility; and though the revolutionary symbols now seem trivial, they were suffi

ciently bizarre to alarm the middle-aged. Corsets were abandoned along with the Viennese waltz.

Long skirts were scandalously abbreviated, and long hair was 'bobbed.' Young women smoked, and

10



opened in towns and villages, fanatical Gaelic Leaguers, Irish Irelanders and

Catholic priests conducted an anti-jazz crusade to rid the country of such for

eign "importations from the vilest dens of London, Paris and New York, direct

and unmistakable incitements to evil thoughts and evil desires."4 By the middle

of the 1930s, the issue had become an impassioned battle for the souls and feet

of the nation. Having been reminded by the Gaelic League that "our Minister of

Finance has a soul buried in jazz and is selling the musical soul of the nation," de Val?ra's Fianna Fail government finally succumbed to clerical pressure and

passed the Public Dance Halls Act in 1935.5 Henceforth, all public dancing would require a license, which could only be obtained by persons of good char

acter from a district justice. Failure to comply with the law was deemed an offense and lawbreakers were to be prosecuted accordingly.

Draconian in the extreme, it is ironic that the Dance Halls Act was misap

plied as often as it was applied, and especially in rural communities. Depart ment of Justice files finally released in the late 1980s and early 1990s offer some

disturbing insights into the confused interpretation of the act by it handlers.6 In

hindsight, it is blatantly clear that the act was never intended to cover crossroad

in public, and danced into the dawn to the sensual moan of the saxophone, an instrument forgot

ten for eighty years but now revived and condemned, by city fathers and magistrates on both sides

of the Atlantic, as a siren sound, beckoning young girls to a losing battle with a fate worse than

death."

4. Irish Catholic Directory, 1924, cited in The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, ed. Fintan Val

lely (Cork University Press, Cork, 1999), p. 103. 5. In 1934, the Gaelic League's anti-jazz campaign went into overdrive. They condemned indi

vidual politicians whose musical tastes were regarded as "anti-national." Radio ?ireann, which

broadcast jazz to the nation, was one of their prime targets. In attacking the minister of finance for

underwriting such broadcasts, the League secretary noted that "our Minister of Finance has a soul

buried in jazz and is selling the musical soul of the nation for the dividends of sponsored jazz pro

grammes. He is jazzing every night of the week." Cited in Jim Smyth, "Dancing, Depravity and all

that Jazz: The Public Dance Halls Act of 1935," History Ireland, 1, 2, (Summer, 1993), 54. In 1935, the

League passed firm resolutions asking for a boycott of jazz music. By the early 1940s, jazz was final

ly banned from the national airwaves. See: P?draig ? Fearail, The Story ofConradh na Gaeilge (Baile

?tha Cliath: Cl?dhanna Teo, 1975), p. 47; Luke Gibbons, Transformations in Irish Culture (Cork:

Cork University Press, 1996), p. 75. 6. As late as 1978, forty-three years after the enactment of the Public Dance

Halls Act, the Depart

ment of Justice still refused scholars access to relevant files dealing with the application of the Act.

See Breand?n Breathnach, Dancing in Ireland (Miltown Malbay: Dal gCais, 1983), pp. 45-46. In the

early 1990s, by which time the state files dealing with the act had entered the public domain and

were housed in the Public Records Office in Dublin), certain controversial documents?for exam

ple, Rev. R. A. Devane's tirade titled "The Dance Hall, a Moral and National Menace" delivered

before the Criminal Law Amendment Committee in 1931?were mysteriously omitted from the file.

It is tempting to suggest that they were removed lest they might offend latter-day church author

ities. See Valerie A. Austin, "The C?il? and the Public Dance Halls Act, 1935" in Eire-Ireland, 28, 3

(Fall, 1993), 7-16.

11



dances and, as dance historian Terry Moylan has suggested, probably not house

dances either.7 That crossroad dancing had been overlooked by the act is clear

from the missive sent by the secretary of the Department of Justice to the attor

ney general on March 13,1936:

Enquiries are being received regarding dances which are held throughout the

country at crossroads, particularly during the summer time. The dances take

place on a platform, wooden or concrete, erected by private subscription and

usually there is no charge for dancing. The Minister is of the opinion that such

dances do not come within the scope of the Public Dance Halls Act 1935. The

places at which they are held are not enclosed and seem to be outside the defin

ition of 'place' in section 1. Furthermore, there is no 'occupier' who could be

made amenable under section 10. In these circumstances, it is proposed to

instruct the Garda S?och?na not to take any action in respect of such dances and

the Minister would be glad to learn whether you agree.8

The attorney general agreed with the department secretary, who in turn wrote

and informed the garda commissioner that crossroad dancing was not in con

travention of the act, and requested that he issue "necessary instructions to the

gardai in the matter." Despite this explicit exchange, the directive seems to have

had little impact in allaying the doubts or quelling the fanaticism of Catholic clerics for whom the act would become an ethical prophylactic. Working in tan

dem with the gardai?either of their own accord, or on the direct instructions

of their bishop?many priests felt it was their moral duty to promulgate the Act

among their congregations. The crusade that ensued both on and off the altar would have dramatic consequences for music makers and dancers throughout

rural Ireland in the 1930s.9

Newspaper reports in Clare in 1935 and 1936 were avid in their treatment of the Dance Halls Act and, in particular, local court cases that dealt publicly with violators. The first prosecution in Clare under the new act occurred in Novem

ber, 1935. The case was reported in the Clare Champion under the jocular head line "Kilkee Court, Tale of the Flute Players *A Bob a Head' Keeping Out the

Country Boys." Citing the evidence of the local gardai, the article reported that:

7- Terry Mov?an, "Public Dance Halls Act 1935, posting on the Irish Traditional Music List,

[email protected], February 20,1996. 8. Quoted by Moylan, p.i. 9. Immediately following the passage of the act, the Department of Justice was swamped with let ters from music and dance enthusiasts?among them Gaelic League c?il? organizers?complaining about harassment of dancers by the gardai and clergy. On March 10,1935, James Maher of Killaloe,

County Clare wrote to the department claiming that "there will exist no means by which our youth can get a knowledge or desire for Irish dance and music and in a short period, Irish dance will be

forgotten and Irish music non-existent." Austin, p.12.

12



Sergeant Carroll stated that on the ist of August, he was duty in Kilkee in civil

ian attire and was accompanied by Guard Kiernan. When passing the defendant's

house, he heard music and noise, as if a dance were in progress. He went to the

door and it was opened by a man ... who greeted the witness with words, 'Pay

up: bob a head'. Witnesses paid 1/- [one shilling] and went in and found five boys and five girls sitting around the kitchen. There were two flute players present.

Mrs. M. (owner of the house) was also present. When approached, she claimed the dance was free and that she had told the man on the door that if any 'coun

try boys' came to say that the charge was 1/- per head, just to keep them out. The

judge imposed a fine of ?3, reduced to ?2, on the appeal of Sergeant Carroll who said that the defendant was a very poor man.10

Illegal house dance cases continued to feature in the Clare Champion for the remainder of 1935 and in following years. In purusing the details of these court cases, it becomes clear that the new act was ambiguous and largely inadequate to deal discerningly with the economic anxieties that prompted many house dances. Consequently, district justices were confronted with an array of per plexed circumstances which were never taken into consideration by the drafters

of the act.

Despite de Val?ra's nostrums of cosy farms and sturdy youths, Clare in the 1930s was rife with poverty and unemployment. Ennis and Kilrush were severe

ly overcrowded. Destitute families lived in appalling slums, which local author ities endeavored to clear and the local press endeavored to highlight. In Sep tember, 1936, the Clare Champion reported that a demonstration of unemployed

citizens, led by a band, took place in Ennis.11 Three months later, in December,

1936, a meeting of the Clare County Council was interrupted by a crowd of three hundred unemployed men appealing for a Christmas dinner for their impov erished families. Holding a house dance to raise a few shillings to feed one's fam

ily was often a matter of survival in such harsh times. Obtaining a license to do

so was only a minor item in the order of priorities.

While the leniency of the law might waver on the side of the destitute, no such fortune shone on the

"gamble dance." These card-playing tournaments, in

which participants gambled for turkeys, hams, alcohol?usually whiskey, brandy and, occasionally,poitin?and other provisions, were a common feature

of social entertainment in the weeks before Christmas. Card players usually paid a

shilling to take part in a "gamble." In some cases, the gamble took place in the

parlor, while a dance was held simultaneously in the kitchen. In other cases, the

dance took place after the gamble finished and often went on until four or five o'clock in the morning. Such unlicensed gatherings were prime targets for raid

?o. Clare Champion, 9 November 1935, cited in Brennan, p. 127. n. Clare Champion, 12 September 1936.

13



ing sorties of police and clergy in rural communities. Even the customary prac

tice of barn dances and "potato dances," given by a farmer to the communal

meitheal, or work force, who had helped him with the harvest, came under the hammer of the law. In December, 1935, a small farmer in Shanaway, outside

Ennis, was summoned for holding a private dance in his house for his neighbors who helped him with his crops. Not realizing that he should have acquired a license from a district justice, the defendant admitted that

he held a dance at which 26 girls and 40 boys attended. There was no charge for

admission and tea was supplied at the defendant's expense. He got up the dance

for his neighbours who had helped him save the crops.12

By now, however, the influence of the Catholic clergy on local authorities was both conspicuous and disturbing. With vigilante-style zeal, some priests accompanied gardai raiding unlicensed house dances, while others tried to

badger district justices to apply the law more rigorously. In attempting to per suade judges to limit or ban Saturday night dances, priests argued that parish ioners who were "out until all hours" could not possibly attend Mass on Sun

day morning; or, if they did, they could not give it its proper reverence. It was also proposed that a geographic limit be imposed on outsiders attending dances. These broadsides were aimed at morally irresponsible strangers from

distant parishes who usually traveled considerable distances on bicycles. Spe cial wariness, however, was reserved for "townies with motor cars," wherein "all

sorts of evil passion awaited innocent country girls" who might be lured into the back seat.13

Not all local justices, however, took kindly to being cajoled by priests to endorse their moral crusade. A report from Sixmilebridge district court in early 1936 contained a cutting response from an irate district justice who made it explicitly clear to those in attendance that:

it was a very invidious thing for the Parish Priest to write to me and say that if I

granted any more licenses I would hear more about it. I hope I will get no more

letters of that description from that quarter, or from any other quarter either.14

Retorts like this, as well as anecdotal evidence in other parts of Clare, confirm

that there was no across-the-board consistency in enforcing the act. In some

areas, individual gardai and clergy turned a blind eye and were often empathetic to the need for dancing within their communities. Discerning clerics, like Fr.

Roche in Connolly compromised with their congregations, brought local musi

12. Clare Champion, 14 December 1935. 13. Ollie Conway, interview with author, Cree, County Clare, July, 1976. Taped recordings and tran

scripts of this and subsequently cited interviews are in the possession of the author. 14. Clare Champion, 1 February 1936, cited in Brennan, p. 129.

14


Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of1935

cians together, and helped them buy instruments and form c?il? bands, like the

well-known Fiach Roe C?il? Band that performed from 1940 to i960.15 In areas where strict adherence to the letter of the law was the norm, the

confessional box was often the last frontier, wherein sinners faced the full rigor of interrogation. Not alone were the contrite expected

to confess the "sin of

dancing," but they were expected to avoid such laxity in the future. The obliga tion of going to confession at "stations," where Mass

was celebrated in country

houses, brought dancers face-to-face with the priest, a fate that could have dis

astrous consequences for the morally delinquent. Concertina player Gerdie

Commane from Kilnamona, recalled the following story of a penitent being

reprimanded for dancing on the "hobs of hell," as house dances were dubbed by zealous men of the cloth:

There was a priest here one time, Fr. Mc Inerney, and, if you went to confession

to him, you'd get no absolution at all, if you were at a dance. Mickey Talty told

me one time that he went back there the mountain to house stations and you'd

have to go to confession and, the worst of it was, you'd meet him face-to-face,

and this Fr. Mclnerney had an awful set on the dances. "Well! When were you at

a dance last?," he said to Mickey. "Well! I'm not long home Father," said Mickey.

Well! He lit into him. "Oh! Take off your shoes and stockings and burn them and

don't ever go again. I can't give you any absolution." It was going on like that for

a couple of years until Mickey went into the Franciscan friars to confession and

that settled that. But in those days, what the priest said was law and that was it.l6

Despite the fear of prosecution, the shame of being "read out" from the altar

on

Sunday, or the dread of getting one's name in the paper?the ubiquitous Clare

Champion was read in virtually every Clare home?eager dancers still chanced

their luck at house dances. This was as evident in well-policed towns like Ennis

as it was in geographically isolated parts of Clare, where halls were nonexistent

and the chances of gardai on push bikes tackling long byroads and boreens on

wet winter nights were fairly slim. The moral quandary of attending a house

dance was not without humorous sidebars, however. The following anecdote

recounting the secret night life of an altar boy, otherwise a beacon of propriety and rectitude in his community, was recalled by Fr. Gerry Fitzpatrick, former

parish priest of Knockera, on the southwest Clare peninsula:

There was a great story told about a local mass server in Kilmihil. He was the

youngest of eight. He was born and reared in the Fair Green in Kilmihil. He was

out at a house dance one night and it was the early hours of the morning when

he came home. It must have been about seven o'clock in the morning. He went

15- Paddy Murphy, interview with author, Belcragga, Connolly, County Clare. September, 1981.

16. Gerdie Commane, interview with author, Kilnamona, County Clare, August, 1986.

15



to bed and his father called him and he said: "Get up and go back and open the church for Canon Tom." So he did. But the people who were at Mass noticed our friend nodding off every now and then. He had given the wine and the water to

Canon Tom and had gone back to his place down at the step of the altar and he was going off to sleep again when Canon Tom turned around. Our friend at the end of the night and a half-an-hour in bed was still hearing "The Sally Gardens" and "The Bucks of Oranmore"you name it. I suppose he wasn't in such a great liturgical state. Anyhow, when Canon Tom turned around and said: Orate Fratres (Let us pray brethren), the lad woke up and said: "Is it a reel or a jig, Canon?"

Clearly, he was in the right department, but in the wrong house.17

If the combined forces of church and state colluded to purge society of unlicensed dancing in the 1930s, it is ironic that the decade witnessed a build ing boom in parish halls all over the country. As "persons of good character"

parish priests had a monopoly on the numbers of dance licenses issued. The halls they built were set aside explicitly for parochial purposes. However, they quickly acquired a commercial role, as vital sources of funding for church related social and economic projects, as well as an untapped source of taxation for the government. Above all, parochial halls were legitimized in the popular

mind by the moral proviso of supervision. Boys and girls were kept at a mod est distance from each other while dancing, and their behavior policed by the cassocked figure of the parish priest, who surveyed activities from the stage or the back door.

While serving dance purposes, the new halls also functioned as a meeting

place for missionary societies, parochial charities, and youth movements like the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland, all of which thrived in the climate of liturgical fervor created by the Eucharistie Congress in 1932.18 Similarly, parochial halls acted as a focal point for local branches of Muintir na Tire (People of the Land), a new grassroots organization based on the parochial network that was found ed in 1931 and which quickly spread throughout rural Ireland. Influenced by Catholic social teaching, especially the vocationalist and corporate ideals o? Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, and reaffirmed by Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno in 1931, Muintir na Tire was an agricultural economic

17- Fr. Gerry Fitzpatrick, interview with author, Knockera, County Clare, August, 1986. 18. A new scout hall was build in Ennis in 1933 to house the first Clare troop of the Catholic Boy

Scouts of Ireland. It was located adjacent to the parochial house and the town's pro-cathedral of SS Peter and Paul. While this new Catholic movement was organized on a diocesan basis, it became a novel feature of urban life in Clare during the 1930s. Many scout troops formed pipe bands, which helped to spread the teaching of music among middle and lower urban classes, as well as to add

musical parades to local sports, religious, and political events. Weekly dances, combining c?il? with waltzes, were organised in the Ennis Scout Hall, under the watchful eyes of the nearby parochial house.

16


Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of1933

cooperative which enthusiastically endorsed vocationalism at study weekends and residential congresses during the 1930s.19

In County Clare, as in other parts of Ireland, the transition from the coun

try house to the village hall, facilitated by the Dance Hall Act, dislodged music and dancing from the familial to the public domain. The resulting paradigm shift reinforced the social need and musical market for emerging c?il? bands,

which quickly took over from the solo player, or the small handful of fiddlers who would normally play for a few sets in a country house. Halls and stage plat forms demanded greater volume, longer bouts of music, and new repertoires to

satisfy the tastes of both modern and traditional dancers who shared a common

space in the parochial hall. In this new psychological arena, the traditions of

rhythmic subtlety, appreciation for the skill of the music maker, and the infor mal chat between tunes ceded their place to rasping accordions, drum-kit antics, and greater separation between musicians and dancers. Likewise, older modal

based tunes were butchered by oblivious piano players, before disappearing forever into the black hole of fixed major and minor chords that were the stock in-trade of convent-trained pianists.

Not everyone felt comfortable leaving the flagstone floor of the country house for the parochial hall. The West Clare fiddler and storyteller Junior Cre han was one such hesitant convert:

The country house was the center of all social activity in those days. It was not

only a place of entertainment, it was also a school where the traditions of music

making, story telling and dancing were passed on from one generation to the

next, and when the house dances passed away, much of our native culture was

lost. The clergy started to build the parochial hall to which all were expected to

go, and the government collected twenty five percent of the ticket in tax. In these

halls, modern dance bands played a different kind of music for a different kind

of dancing?Foxtrot, One Step and Shimmy Shake. But country people found

it hard to adjust and, to them, the dance halls were not natural places of enjoy ment; they were not places for traditional music, storytelling and dancing. They were unsuitable for passing on traditional arts. The Dance Hall Act closed our

19- Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922-79 (Glasgow: Fontana, 1981), pp. 160-61. Catholic social teaching appealed to those who felt that Ireland's new independence should

be expressed in a manner that reflected the faith of the majority on the island. The 1930s saw the cre ation of many new societies, organizations, and journals that encouraged the adoption of voca tionalist and corporate ideas. They shared a belief that the crisis looming in Europe between fascism and communism could only be resolved by the establishment of a new vocationalist society, in which people would be organized into guiids or corporations based on their professions and voca tions. Representative government would reflect this new vocationalist structure, which, in turn,

would help heal divisions between social classes and states and lead, eventually, to an era of social and political harmony.

V


Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 193$

schools of tradition and left us a poorer people. As a musician, I played at many

house dances and there was nothing there but innocent fun, with fathers, moth

ers, brothers and sisters. It was there that we learned the music and the sets. It

was there that we learned the step dance and where we met our wives. As the

poet said one time: "Twas our hands raised the walls of our cabins, where our

children were born and bred, where our weddings and christenings were merry,

where we waked and caoined our dead."20

Whether it is perceived as a catalyst, or as only one of many factors in a tor

rent of oncoming change, there is no doubt that the Public Dance Halls Act was

a source of upheaval among music communities all over Ireland. The building boom in parochial halls that it helped to generate in towns and villages opened a whole new chapter in Irish music history. The c?il? band, which had already

gained currency in the 1920s, was facilitated in becoming a key feature of Irish musical life, dovetailing the modern tone of the saxophone and double bass with the traditional tone of flute and fiddle. Traditional musicians would now

be lured to the c?il? band by competitive, commercial, and broadcast opportu nities?all of which would serve to rupture even further the cultural contours

of the kitchen cuaird, the traveling dancing master, and the country house dance.

0*^ UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS

20. Junior Crehan, interview with author, Miltown Malbay, County Clare, July, 1986. See also

Harry Hughes and M?iris ? Roch?in, "Junior Crehan Remembers,"Dal gCais: Journal of Clare, 3,

(1977)> 72-85.

i8


Article Contentsp. [9]p. 10p. 11p. 12p. 13p. 14p. 15p. 16p. 17p. 18

Issue Table of ContentsNew Hibernia Review / Iris ireannach Nua, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 1-160Front MatterEditors' Notes: Nta na nEagarthir [pp. 5-8]Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935 [pp. 9-18]Murder and Madness: Gender and the Insanity Defense in Nineteenth-Century Ireland [pp. 19-36]Cover: Cldach [p. 36-36]Filocht Nua: New PoetryThree Down [p. 37-37]Low Winter Sun [pp. 38-39]The Mysteries [pp. 40-43]Interview on Main Street [p. 44-44]Tender Is the Rain [pp. 45-47]Word [p. 47-47]

Public Enemies, Local Heroes: The Irish-American Gangster Film in Classic Hollywood Cinema [pp. 48-64]The Language of Violence in Robert McLiam Wilson's "Eureka Street" [pp. 65-78]A Pastoral Vision: The Novels of Canon Joseph Guinan [pp. 79-98]An Infant Avatar: The Mature Occultism of W. B. Yeats [pp. 99-112]Austin Clarke and the Consolations of Irish Catholicism [pp. 113-128]Rebel Songs and Hero Pawns: Music in "A Star Called Henry" [pp. 129-143]Sean O'Faolain and Irish Identity [pp. 144-156]Reviews: LirmheasannaReview: untitled [pp. 157-158]Review: untitled [pp. 158-159]

Back Matter

Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935

Documents

Transcript of Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935