The Night Butch Moore Came To Town

The whole of Ireland came to a halt that Saturday night in March 1965 – the night Butch Moore became the country’s first representative in the Eurovision Song Contest in Naples. The whole of Cork City came to a halt three nights later when he arrived at the Imperial Hotel for a gig in the Arcadia Ballroom on the Lower Road. The Capitol Showband’s lead singer had just become the hottest property in the entertainment world and the women of Cork turned out in their droves to see him.

 three social phenomena of the era combined to produce a tsunami of hysteria that swept over us

Looking back, it’s difficult to appreciate now, fifty years later (Oh my God!), the excitement that gripped the country at the time, as three social phenomena of the era combined to produce a tsunami of hysteria that swept over us:

 

  1. Television was just making inroads into living rooms around the country;
  2. The Eurovision Song Contest was new, live and exciting & dazzled us with its live link-ups to studios all over Europe;
  3. And the Showband phenomena was at its zenith, bringing the glitz and the glamour of Dickie Rock & The Miami; Brendan Boyer & The Royal; Derek Dean & The Freshmen – and dozens more – to obscure ballrooms all round the country. But Butch Moore topped the lot the night he appeared on Eurovision. For a brief moment he had become a King! Is it any wonder the South Mall was cordoned off the night he came to town!

 We’d hardly got over the excitement and now he was here – Butch Moore was in Cork! – in the Imperial Hotel! – “Girls, girls, take it easy – stop pushing”.

OK – so “Walking the Streets in the Rain” only came 6th. that night but, what the heck, we were competing in Europe now and it was there, live, right in front of our eyes, for all of Europe to see. We’d hardly got over the excitement and now he was here – Butch Moore was in Cork! – in the Imperial Hotel! – “Girls, girls, take it easy – stop pushing”.

 

I was as excited as everybody else – I just had to get his photograph! But there was no getting into the hotel. A combination of hotel staff and Gardaí had the front door cordoned off and, anyway, there was no getting through the heaving mass of girls facing them. I got the mad notion that having a child in my arms would give me some kudos with those on sentry duty.

 

I raced out home on my autocycle, grabbed two year old John Noonan from next door – a kid I regularly baby-sat for – and got the bus back in to town. (Nowadays I’d be arrested!) The Imperial Hotel was still under siege so, child on tow, I slipped down Pembroke Street at the side of the hotel and ducked in through the goods delivery unit at the rear with my camera hidden under the child’s coat.

 

Everybody was too excited to notice us as we made our way upstairs to where the major buzz was coming from. We rounded a corner and, lo and behold!, there he was, Butch Moore, standing nonchalantly by the door to a reception room, chatting to some friends and band members, seemingly totally oblivious to the commotion he was causing out on the street.

 Before anyone could protest, I lobbed the child into his arms and began snapping away.

Before anyone could protest, I lobbed the child into his arms and began snapping away. To be fair to Butch, he was terrific and laughed and played away with John while I was busy with the camera. When the hotel staff saw the camera they, too, wanted their photograph taken with Butch and, in fairness to him, he was happy to pose and chat with them while I recorded it all. His management eventually cleared us out, “Come on, lads, Butch has a show to prepare for shortly.”

 

I went off singing, I was the only photographer to get in and I knew I had a minor scoop. Sure enough, the photograph with John in his arms appeared on the front of the following night’s Evening Echo and the caption declared young John was “His youngest fan!” I’m sure he would have been, too, had he known who the heck Butch Moore was!

 

(Young John wasn’t too traumatised by all the excitement, anyway, and went on to become Sales & Marketing Director of Flahavans, the company that made your porridge this morning!)