The Royal Blues were the first act from the West of Ireland to top the Irish charts.  They achieved this feat in 1966 with their hit Old Man Trouble.  

The group was formed in 1962 with Doc Carroll, Ballinrobe, on vocals and Claremorris’s Gill brothers, Frank and Vincent, on saxophone and trombone respectively.  Another Mayo man, Andy Creighton, managed the band.

Over the past year, Claremorris Community Radio members have been interviewing the surviving band members, former fans of the group and Marie Creighton, to build a picture of the excitement of those years, when this local group was one of Ireland’s biggest acts.

This special documentary will be broadcast on Sunday next at 5pm.  It will be repeated on Monday (29th) at 8pm and also on Wednesday (31st) at 7pm.

Update: You can now listen to this show on our Mixcloud stream: www.mixcloud.com/claremorrisfm/the-royal-blues/

Would you like to relive Ireland’s showband boom of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s?

Well, good news! Now you can, simply by listening to Showband Legends, a new weekly show here on Claremorris Community Radio.

Join host Marty Flannery as each week he looks back to a time when there were 600 showbands in the country, filling dancehalls and ballrooms in cities, towns and villages, several nights a week.

The showbands were in big demand throughout Ireland, and also in the UK, USA and Australia. They had a very wide range of music: pop, country, jazz and Dixieland, and Marty’s show will echo this.

Tune in to Showband Legends each Saturday at 2pm (repeated on Fridays at 11am).  The first show in the series will be aired on this Saturday, February 17th.