The Ierne ballroom in Dublin is reopening tonight after a 15-year interlude. Dancers from its heyday talk to Róisín Ingle

Facing the Garden of Remembrance on Dublin's Parnell Square East, the Ierne Ballroom has been something of a wallflower since the doors closed on its dancing days. Now the iconic venue is being given a new lease of life by James Cafferty, who is reopening it as Caffertys @ the Ierne, a thoroughly modern dancehall pitched at revellers in their late 20s to 50s. The Co Sligo businessman used to shake a leg himself at the Ierne in the ballroom's heyday, a time when Parnell Square was the dance mecca of Ireland, and if you had the price of admission and a mineral for any potential lady friends, you were, says Cafferty, "on the pig's back".

Two mirror balls have just been hung up, there's a smell of fresh varnish from the newly laid ballroom floor, and for many who danced there in the good old days, stepping into the new Ierne will be like stepping back in time.

True, it has been smartened up considerably since the 1960s, when the showbands selected by proprietor Christy Gunn attracted heaving, sweating crowds of up to 2,000. The peeling paisley wallpaper is long gone, there are new showers and toilets for the artists - a luxury unheard of back in those days - and three bars to service the crowds. But the ballroom still has an old world feel that will please those people who like to dance in the old-fashioned way.

Cafferty, who promotes music festivals and artists including Joe Dolan, believes he has spotted a major gap in the nightclub market. "There are bands playing outside Dublin to great audiences in places like Lucan and Celbridge but not in Dublin itself. There are big draws such as Jimmy Buckley, Mike Denver and Mick Flavin. The age group I want to cater for are out dancing from Wednesday through to Sunday but they are not out in Dublin," he says. "Of all the projects I've been involved with, this is causing the biggest interest, there are people on the phone to us every day asking when we are opening."

The venture is something of a labour of love for Cafferty, who spent more nights than he cares to remember dancing at the Ierne during the late 1960s and 1970s. "My favourite memory is seeing Joe Dolan being pulled off the stage by adoring fans," he says. "I'd be here every weekend. There was no drink at all . . . the girls would be on one side and the fellas on the other.

"When a song was introduced by the band there would be a crush and the girls would be mauled . . . I always aimed for the best girl in the hall. Ithose days there was a scarcity of women so they had their pick of the men."

Like most of the ballrooms at that time, the Ierne closed for Lent and it was one of the last "minerals only" venues in the city. Dymphna O'Gorman, originally from Co Monaghan, was typical of the regular crowd who joined the queue outside the Ierne, a queue that sometimes snaked as far as Chalk's restaurant on the corner of the square. "Myself and my friends would sometimes go dancing seven nights a week," she says, listing the National and the Irish Club, also in Parnell Square, among their favourites. She remembers the tea room on the left, the long corridor on the way into the venue, and the high stage in the ballroom, which had them standing on chairs to get a good look at performers such as Frankie McBride. "We used to adore him when he'd sing Five Little Fingers, a song about a father and a baby," she says.

It was a time when with a week's wages from the Civil Service she could buy a transistor radio and a new dress and she'd still have money for her keep to hand over to the aunt she was living with.

The nights followed a familiar pattern. "We'd meet up with the girls, put our coats in the cloakroom, touch up our make-up and then head in," she recalls. "All the fellas would be on one side and the girls were on the other. They'd come over and ask you to dance and if you didn't like them, you'd refuse."

They were innocent days. "You knew if a fella fancied you because he'd ask to buy you a mineral so you could have a chat," she laughs. There wasn't much talk between the couples on the dancefloor. "We were too busy jiving and waltzing. The dancing at that time was closer than what it is today, more romantic. The youngsters today are missing out, just standing there apart from each other shaking themselves. There's not much contact any more."

JOHN FLEMING, A DUBLINER who was a regular in the latter days of the Ierne, remembers how it was a favourite with long-distance lorry drivers. "There was no parking restrictions in those days and you'd see all the articulated lorries lined up all around the square. There was never any trouble, everyone was just having the craic."

Originally a church, the Ierne ballroom was opened in the 1960s by Christy Gunn, helped by his wife Betty. Ask anyone in the business about the venue during those days and they mention the Gunns. "All the other ballroom owners or band managers would make their way to the lane at the back of the Ierne, kick the back door and Christy would open it, and Betty would be there with the kettle and sandwiches," remembers showband veteran Hugh Hardy, former manager of Larry Cunningham and the Mighty Avons.

It wasn't the most glamorous of places, he remembers, but attracted huge crowds of people who were from outside Dublin, living in the capital. "You didn't come to the Ierne for the decor, it was basic to say the least. Thursday night was the big night for country people, the Dublin jackeens and jackettes didn't go as much to what they called 'culchie night'. There would be bands like Big Tom and Butch Moore and the Capitol. Christy got all the top names."

Dickie Rock, a regular performer at the Ierne, met his wife there. And another one of those top names, Sean Dunphy, who is recovering from a quadruple heart bypass, says it was "a magic place". Sitting in the sun-drenched lane behind the venue, he remembers the night he was pulled off the Ierne stage by crazed fans. It was the week after he'd returned from representing Ireland in the Eurovision song contest in 1967. "I was never one of those showmen who got the females excited but I'd just come back from the Eurovision so there was a bit more of a buzz," he says. "The stage used to slope and I had reached down to shake hands with some of the crowd when I got pulled down. I remember I was wearing a beautiful suit but by the time they'd finished with me I only had the trousers left. I was mortified. I had to borrow some clothes to finish the rest of the set."

They say the advent of disco and licensed bars killed off the Ierne, which was taken over by the Dublin Fire Brigade as its social club when it closed. It's also been used in the past as an exam hall for local schools and has hosted various community events. "The Ierne was like a national shrine at the weekends," says Liam Ryan, the former proprietor of the Olympic Ballroom in Dublin. "It was a pilgrimage for country people where they could enjoy the country music they loved so deeply".

And now it's back, a wallflower no more. Form an orderly queue.

Caffertys @ the Ierne opens at 8pm tonight, with Jimmy Buckley and guests