“Dance halls should be closed at 11pm at latest - otherwise, they (are) a menace to morality.” Bishop Patrick McKenna of Clogher didn’t mince his words. “In this way, dance halls were conducive to temptation and were an occasion of sin. So followed a period in The Irish Times when reports of monthly licence hearings and the attempts to block them were plentiful. Also, as paraffin became scarce during wartime, the early 1940s saw a clampdown on any wastage, including lighting dance halls. This story is part of the Lost Leads series - a revisiting of lesser-known stories that have made the pages of The Irish Times since 1859.

Source: The Irish Times April 01, 2018 06:56 UTC