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This band picture from the 1950s/'60s surfaced during the year, courtesy of Mick Treacy, showing the maestro James (Jimmy) Fitzgerald and his band. The picture shows Jimmy Fitz as he was affectionately known, on tenor sax, TJ Hartigan on clarinet and Charlie Sweeney on drums, Joe Farrell on accordion (left)
Prior to 1961, public performance of Irish traditional music in Galway took place primarily in the form of céilís in large dancehalls — namely in the Hangar, the Commercial and the Astaire. These were enormously popular — remember the hundreds of bicycles parked outside the Hangar on a Sunday night — but they began to go out of fashion in the sixties and were regarded as old fashioned and backward.