Limerick’s Beat Clubs Take Centre Stage - Culture Night Rewind
Culture Night Rewind
Limerick’s Beat Clubs Take Centre Stage
by
Kieran Beville
` On Friday, September 19th,
Culture Night in Limerick will come alive with the sounds, stories, and the spirit
of the city’s Beat era. Led by James “Cha” Haran — former singer with Granny’s
Intentions, the trailblazing 1960s band who put Limerick on the rock ’n roll
map.
The inaugural Limerick
Beat Experience will celebrate the youth clubs, venues, and musical revolutions
that defined a generation, with walking tours, vinyl-spinning DJs, and live
performances. The event invites music fans of all ages to step back into the
era when teenagers first found their voice through rhythm and blues, pirate
radio, and the electric charge of live bands.
Granny’s
Intentions – From Limerick to Legend
If you’ve heard
whispers of Limerick’s Beat scene, you’ve heard of Granny’s Intentions. Formed
in 1967, the band — Johnny Hockedy, Jack Costelloe, Guido De Vito, John Ryan,
Cha Haran, and songwriter Johnny Duhan — stood out in a country where rock ’n’
roll was still viewed with suspicion.
Their sound
fused rhythm and blues grit with a distinctly Irish sensibility, and their
reputation grew not only in smoky dancehalls at home but across the water,
where they eventually relocated to London. They shared bills with major acts,
recorded for Deram (the label that also housed Cat Stevens and The Moody
Blues), and left behind an enduring cult legacy.
For many in
Limerick, however, Granny’s Intentions are remembered less for their records
and more for their role as trailblazers — proof that a group of lads from the
Shannon could go toe-to-toe with the best in Britain.
Cha Haran, who
lent his voice to those early incarnations, now returns not as a performer
chasing fame but as a cultural custodian. His mission is to honour not just his
own band, but the entire ecosystem that nurtured a generation of Irish
musicians.
Beat
Clubs – Where Teenagers Became Teenagers
To understand
the significance of Limerick’s Beat Clubs, you need to rewind to the early 1960s.
Ireland was a conservative place, hemmed in by tradition, the Church, and a
social code that left little room for youthful rebellion. Yet technology has a
way of slipping past borders, and across the Irish Sea came the signals: pirate
stations like Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg, blasting out the latest
singles from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Them — the latter fronted by
a young, electrifying Van Morrison.
In Limerick,
young people — a new demographic who were only just being labelled “teenagers”
— wanted to experience this music not just through the radio but in the flesh.
They needed places to congregate, dance, and belong. Out of that hunger grew
the Beat Clubs: The Club a Go-Go, The Cavalier, and The Frans (Franciscan
Hall), among others.
These were more than venues. They were laboratories of style and identity. Mods in sharp suits and scooterists in parkas rubbed shoulders with working-class kids saving pocket money for a pint and a few dances. DJs like Danny Hughes and Peter Jackson spun vinyl like high priests of rhythm, and the city hummed with possibility.
A Walking Tour of Memory
The Limerick
Beat Experience will begin at St. Joseph’s Hall at 5pm, where DJ Pól Ó
Maoileoin will drop the needle on the sounds of the era. Think The Who’s
snarling urgency, The Kinks’ wry pop, The Animals’ bluesy growl — a vinyl
séance summoning the ghosts of a generation that found itself on the
dancefloor.
But this isn’t
just about music. At 6pm, cultural historian John O’Regan will lead a walking tour
through the city’s streets, retracing the steps of those restless teenagers.
Every corner has a story: a club that no longer exists, a hall that once
vibrated with fuzz-tone guitars, a doorway where scooterists leaned, cigarettes
glowing in the night. These aren’t just bricks and mortar — they’re fragments
of a lived soundtrack.
For participants, the tour is less about nostalgia and more about recognition. It’s about understanding how Limerick, often side-lined in narratives of Irish music, incubated a scene that connected directly to the broader currents of British and European youth culture.
The
Night Belongs to the Music
At 9pm, the
celebration shifts to Punches, a short walk from St. Joseph’s. There, a
specially assembled group of Limerick musicians calling themselves The
Mixumgatherum will resurrect the hits that kept hips shaking in the ’60s.
Expect high-energy renditions of the songs that once rattled church elders and
thrilled teenagers in equal measure.
And to close the
night, DJ Pól returns to the decks for another set, ensuring the inaugural
Limerick Beat Club Experience ends as it should – with a room full of bodies
moving to the music that first gave them freedom.
Why
It Matters Now
In an age of
streaming platforms and algorithm-driven playlists, it’s hard to imagine a time
when music was scarce, hard-won, and communal. Yet that scarcity gave it power.
A single imported 45 could spark a fashion, a friendship, even a movement. A
pirate broadcast caught late at night could change a life.
For Limerick,
the Beat era was more than just entertainment. It was about breaking free of
constraints, carving out a local identity, and proving that Irish youth could
contribute to the global conversation of pop culture. The fact that bands like
Granny’s Intentions made it beyond the Shannon was not just a musical victory
but a cultural one.
Events like this
matter because they remind us that music history doesn’t just happen in London,
Liverpool, or New York. It happens in places like Limerick, in halls that
smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke, in fleeting nights where a song meant
everything.
Curating
a Legacy
For Cha Haran,
organising this celebration is both personal and communal. He isn’t just
revisiting his youth; he’s curating a legacy. The Beat Clubs may no longer
exist physically, but their impact lingers in the musicians they inspired, the
cultural confidence they instilled, and the stories that still circulate in
pubs and kitchens.
In conversations
leading up to the event, Haran has spoken about the camaraderie of the time.
“It wasn’t just about the music,” he recalled “it was about finding each other,
building something we could call our own. We didn’t know we were making
history, we just knew it felt alive.” That sense of community — fleeting but
unforgettable — is what he hopes to capture again.
In a way, this
night is a form of oral history — except instead of being told, it’s sung,
danced, and felt. It’s a reminder that the act of remembering isn’t passive;
it’s an active, joyous participation in the rhythms that shaped us.
The
Invitation
So on Culture
Night, whether you’re an ageing Mod with a parka in the wardrobe, a scooterist
still polishing chrome, or a younger fan curious about what came before Spotify
and smartphones, the doors are open. Step into St. Joseph’s Hall, follow the
walking tour through Limerick’s streets, lose yourself in the sounds at
Punches, and take part in the living history of a city that once pulsed to the
Beat. Because if there’s one truth about music history, it’s this: the beat
never really disappears. It just waits for us to tune back in.
Legacy
beyond Limerick
What makes this
event unique is that it isn’t locked in nostalgia. Instead, it’s a blueprint
for how smaller cities can claim their role in music history. Just as Liverpool
has celebrated its Merseybeat legacy so too can Limerick showcase its Beat Club
roots as something vital, defiant and proudly its own.
The story of the
Beat era in Limerick is also a story about resilience. It’s about young people
insisting on joy in the face of social conservatism. It’s about claiming space
where none was given. And most importantly, it’s about leaving a cultural
inheritance that continues to ripple outwards — through bands that followed,
through DJs who carried the torch, and through the memories being reignited on
this Culture Night.
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