Butch Moore, who died on April 3rd aged 63, was a showband icon during the 1960s. He achieved celebrity status as Ireland's first contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965 and attracted huge crowds with the Capitol Showband in the State's many ballrooms.
The showbands were a showpiece of Sean Lemass's 1960s Ireland, as the State emerged from the dreary 1950s, and pseudo-plush ballrooms with exotic names like the Borderland (Muff), Limerick's Jetland and the Dreamland in Athy replaced the parish hall as a dance venue.
For a time, there were hundreds of showbands, dressed in colourful suits, criss-crossing Ireland to midweek and weekend venues. Butch Moore, the lead singer with the Capital Showband, rivalled the Royal Showband's Brendan Bowyer as Ireland's most popular showband vocalist. When his career went into a decline, he emigrated to the United States in 1970, where he spent the past 31 years.
Butch Moore was born James Augustine Moore in Dublin in 1938, the son of Thomas Moore and Nora (nee Fay). He acquired the name Butch because of his resemblance to a character in one of the popular films of his youth. His father worked as a parliamentary usher in Leinster House for 50 years, rising to the rank of chief usher.
The family lived on the North Circular Road, and Butch Moore attended O'Connell Schools, where he sang in the choir. He also performed on Radio Eireann music programmes as a boy soprano.
At 15, he joined Jomac Productions, a group which performed for charitable functions. He began his working career as an apprentice printer with the Powell Press in Parliament Street, Dublin, but his real interest was in music and singing. He played with a number of bands before securing his big break with the Capitol Showband in 1958. Its line-up included band leader, Des Kelly, and Paddy Cole, who is still involved in the entertainment business, and an early songwriter for the band was Phil Coulter.
The Capitol achieved a considerable degree of success in the early 1960s. It toured America in 1961, and two years later became the first showband to appear on the new RTE television service. The Capitol played in the London Palladium in 1964 on a night when the lineup included Roy Orbison.
Butch Moore was at the height of his success in 1965, when he won the National Song Contest to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest, in Naples, singing Walking the Streets in the Rain.
In his book on the showband era, Send 'Em Home Sweatin', Vincent Power recalled the atmosphere of the night: "Naples, Saturday, 20 March 1965. It's all over. Butch Moore disappears backstage to his dressingroom and pours a large brandy. Juries in 18 countries across Europe cast their votes. A TV audience of 100 million is entertained by Italian tenor, Mario del Monaco.
"But few in Ireland care one whit for Mario and his repertoire of Neapolitan songs. Prayers are said that the rest of Europe will vote for Butch's entry . . . Luxembourg wins for the first time since the Eurovision Song Contest began in 1956 . . . Ireland is sixth - a satisfactory result for our debut in the contest."
Returning to Dublin, Butch Moore was greeted by hundreds of adoring fans, and his celebrity status grew in the dancehalls. For a time, the adulation rivalled Beatlemania in London.
He would later recall narrowly escaping injury at the hands of fans in July 1965, when he was pulled off the stage by a surging crowd in the Arcadia Ballroom, in Bray. But the showband world was to prove a fickle and volatile business for the Eurovision hero. His marriage to Nora Sheridan, with whom he had three children, Karen, Grainne and Gary, broke up. And his career nosedived after he left the Capitol.
Power writes about "a fallen idol, broke and disillusioned" emigrating to the United States in 1970. There, along with Maeve Mulvany, later to become his second wife, he developed a successful cabaret act. They had three children, Rory, Thomas and Tara.
They subsequently owned a very successful nightclub - The Parting Glass - in Millbury, Massachusetts.
Butch Moore was employed as chief deputy sheriff, Worcester County, Massachusetts, from 1990 to the time of his death, and was described by a former colleague there as "probably one of the most popular and wellliked people in a county of over 750,000 people".
Butch Moore is survived by his wife Maeve, children, Karen, Grainne, Gary, Rory, Thomas and Tara, brothers, Brendan, Desmond and Thomas, and sister Marie.
James Augustine (Butch) Moore: born 1938; died, April 2001