This Handbag is still swingin' after 12 years

Back in the days when there used to be a nightclub called the Kitchen in the basement of the Clarence Hotel, a peculiar thing happened one Monday night in October 1994.

Just as dance was in the ascendant, some people decided to put on a club night that played "music with words for your dancing pleasure". The emphasis was on 1980s chart hits (minus the fromage from that decade) and the club was called Strictly Handbag.

Eighties music on a Monday night? It should only have lasted a few weeks but, next Monday, Strictly Handbag celebrates its 12th anniversary - making it one of longest running club nights in the country. Now resident in Rí-Rá (the Globe), Handbag is simply one of the best club nights you could ever hope to experience.

"It has gone on for so long and endured the dance scene right up through to the new wave scene and it's all down to the music we play," says Handbag's main man Martin Thomas. "We have always stuck to our guns on the dancefloor and maintained a 90 per cent Eighties playlist. When we began, this musical policy was hardly in fashion but we made it so for a select group by concentrating on the better side of the Eighties."

The initial attraction of Handbag for a certain age group was that, in an era when the world seemed to have turned techno, they were playing recognisable music in a stress-free environment with the emphasis very much on fun, fun, fun. Other clubs had attitude, Handbag had the tunes.

The early resident DJs, Thomas and Mick Heaney, played the music they loved when they were growing up - hence the lashings of ska, electro, indie and new wave. With its growing popularity, Handbag had to open up a second room and here they installed the DJ Dandelion who was let loose with her bag full of 1960s pop, garage rock and select boogaloo.

Over the years there have been rivals to Handbag but, as Thomas points out, these other nights seemed to take their musical cue from any amount of "best Eighties albums in the world . . .. ever". While it would be a bit pompous to suggest that Handbag is all about musical purity, its continuing success has largely been because it knew exactly where to draw the musical line between retro and pastiche.

There was something else about Handbag - its flyers. Designed by Brian Nolan, the Handbag flyers have won multiple awards from the Institute of Creative Advertising & Design (Icad) - the only club in Ireland or the UK to do so. It may seem a minor detail, but it all feeds into the quality control standards of the club.

So well-known now that Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand, The Darkness and the unlikely duo of Dennis Hopper and Neil Sedaka always show up whenever they're in town, Handbag has resisted attempts to branch out or franchise itself or in any way mess with the basic philosophy. The only concession they have made is to open a sister club in the Left Bank venue in Sligo which runs every Friday night.

Typically, they have unearthed a musical gem to host their 12th anniversary party next week. The Frank Popp Ensemble hail from Düsseldorf and specialise in a heady mix of vintage Sixties rock, rare Northern Soul, early r'n'b, rockabilly and Freak beat. And if you want an advance taste of the Frank Popp sound, you could do worse than check out their rather fabtastic current release, The Swinging Library Sounds of The Frank Popp Ensemble.

If you're the sort of person who still labours under the illusion that clubbing is all about pneumatic drill music and kidz largin' it up, one visit to Handbag will clear up all your misconceptions.

It's still number one, it's still Strictly Handbag.

The Strictly Handbag 12th anniversary bash is at Rí-Rá on Monday. Doors 11.30pm, admission €8