Madam, - With reference to John Water's column of December 31st, it is true that Joe Dolan was an icon and that the great showman from Mullingar was a significant player in the showband era. But that period did not start in the 1960s.
The dancehall explosion was started much earlier by great and skilled men of music such as Mick Delehunty from Clonmel.Billy Kenrick, Billy Cummins, Mick Coates and Jimmy Dunny were some of the other bandsmen of the late 1940s that I well remember. The showband craze began in the early 1950s when the Clipper Carltons headed out around Ireland from Co Tyrone. They were the original showband and in my view the best.
All other great showbands followed the Clipper Carltons' example. Joe Dolan, despite being rejected by some Dublin know-alls, became a major part of the music and dance-hall revolution.
John Waters is right: music and dancehalls released the shackles of a conservative Ireland, but that liberty was fashioned in the immediate aftermath of Hitler's war by men and women with good music to dance to. Who cares if they were aping the big bands and the music of the day from the US and the UK? - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O'CARROLL, Dublin 18.