Earl Gill plaque, Neary’s.
Dublin’s Palm Court Ballroom had it all, or certainly it had enough to terrify Cornelius Gallagher, one of those who reported to the Vigilance Committee and Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. Visiting it in 1955, he wrote that:
I went to the Mambo Club dance in Palm Court Ballroom last Monday night. Yes! The hall was packed: 100% Teddy Boys, and, I suppose, Teddy Girls. I don’t know if the girls have any particular name, though I could think of a few names which might suit!…The dancing was almost 100% jiving.
It’s likely that on the night Cornelius got himself all hot and bothered by the sight of young people enjoying themselves, Earl Gill was on the stage. By 1955, the Palm Court stage was firmly his.
At the exterior of Neary’s pub, a plaque honours the legendary trumpet-player and bandleader Earl Gill. It has clearly gone on something of an adventure, proclaiming that Gill performed in “this theatre” over many years. While I’m not sure just how it ended up where it has, it honours an figure of great importance in the social and entertainment history of the immediate area. Gill fronted the resident dance band of the Shelbourne Hotel for over four decades, as well as packing various bars and hotels across the inner-city.
Born in Dublin’s East Wall in October 1932, Gill came from good musical stock. His father was a popular pianist at the Queen’s Theatre, while his mother played the cello. His own intention was to follow his father as a pianist, however an accident at the tender age of 12 resulted in the loss of two fingers. Earl switched his musical attention to the trumpet, mastering the instrument by the age of 15, when he was performing almost nightly in the Olympia Theatre. In 1954, a young Gill was praised in the Herald as “one of the finest trumpeters in the country, combining a high degree of musical skill with a sparking style of presentation.” By then, Gill was performing at the Gresham on a regular basis, considered the finest dancing venue in the city.
The young Earl Gill.
In the pre-Showband world, dance bands packed in the crowds. Eleanor O’Leary traces the rise of the dancehall scene in her study Youth and Popular Culture in 1950s Ireland, noting that Dublin had the pulling power to attract stars like Frankie Laine, Bill Hailey, Tommy Steele, Johnny Ray and Vic Lewis.
Even those who opposed it at first came to recognise its commercial pull, with the Herald writing:
We are in the throes of a transition. Ballroom proprietors who have long frowned on jive and its unconventional offshoots have now begun to accept it for what it is worth.
One Dublin establishment, the Palm Court, which is the babe of our luxury night spots, makes no secret of the fact that a new policy has been launched, to encourage rather than eradicate the modern trend. Here, bandleader Earl Gill, who blows a hotter trumpet than most musicians of his age, has been playing to packed houses.
When musical tastes changed, Gill was able to adopt. In 1965, the Earl Girl Showband, later the Hoedowners, tapped into the new emerging style of music that was popular. In an obituary piece for Gill, Dec Cluskey of popular band The Bachelors recalled that:
He was the first superstar single name showband leader. He bridged the gap between the classy, brass-led, big band style and the brash, showy style of the thousands of showbands trekking up and down the roads of Ireland every night of the week.
The band had a remarkable fourteen charting singles between 1966 and 1973, becoming one of Ireland’s leading showbands in the process. He returned to the Shelbourne in the aftermath of the break up of the band, and remained an active and touring musician until his retirement in 2012, always in demand and always respected. As a producer, he worked on a number of records for The Dubliners, with whom he formed a working relationship and friendship.
I’m not sure how his plaque ended up where it did, but I’m glad he has one.