The big names of Ireland's showband era are to be honoured with a €100,000 Hollywood Boulevard-type "Walk of Fame" in Cork city which will be officially unveiled early next month.
About 20 star-shaped plaques, each with a showband name, will be laid in the footpath at the site of the Arcadia Ballroom in Lower Glanmire Road, opposite Kent railway station.
The Walk of Fame, similar to that outside the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, is expected to become Cork's newest attraction for tourists and locals alike.
The Walk of Fame will be officially opened by former taoiseach Albert Reynolds, who owned a chain of ballrooms during the showband period that peaked from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s.
Thousands would go dancing seven nights a week, following their favourite bands all over.The Dixies could attract 3,000 patrons to the Arcadia.
Declan O'Mahony, the owner of the Arcadia Hall Student Accommodation complex, which stands on the site of the old Arcadia ballroom, said he was delighted to be in a position to honour "a very special era in Irish entertainment history".
The term "Irish showband" generally refers to a particular type of musical act popular in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s. Showbands such as the Clipper Carlton, the Dixies, the Royal and hundreds more travelled the length and breadth of Ireland playing to packed houses every night.
Bands set to be commemorated include Dale Hale and the Champions, the Regal Showband, the Capitol, The Miami, Joe Dolan and the Drifters, the Victors, the Dixies and the Arrivals.
Before the showbands, most "bands" in Ireland in the early 1950s were similar to the "big bands" of the 1940s or orchestras. They usually had 10 or 12 musicians who sat behind music stands while a band leader, such as Mick Delahunty or Maurice Mulcahy, took centre stage.
They played the Irish dance circuit which was mostly made up of some ballrooms and the parochial halls that dotted the island.
It wasn't long before someone got the idea to stand up and move to the music, and the showband was born. Most showbands featured seven or eight members, a full complement of brass and a lead singer out front instead of a band leader. By the late 1970s, though, the showband era was all but over.