Las Vegas Ballroom, Templemore, Co. Tipperary
The newspaper ad announcing the opening of
the Las Vegas Ballroom in Templemore is interesting in that it points to
the growth in marquee dancing during the 1950's as one of the driving forces
behind the building of the ballroom. Like so many of its
contemporaries, the Las Vegas has a 4500 sq ft maple dance floor which appears
to have become the standard in the era of the "big"
ballrooms build in the early to mid-1960's. The ballroom opened its doors on
June 9, 1961 to the sounds of Donie Collins. Proprietor Con Hynes
would continue building Las Vegas Ballrooms for a few more years. For over a
decade, the ballroom attracted great crowds
to all the top name bands. In 1973, a strange advert announced the ballroom was
"closing for the summer season."
The ballroom did re-open again and ran dances over Christmas and into early
1974. In February, we found the last advert for the ballroom
which announced the next dance on February 23rd would feature the Dixies, but no
further adverts appeared. Then in November
an article in the Nenagh Guardian announced that planning permission had been
given to turn the ballroom into a
factory. A few years later in 1976, Con Hynes placed an advert offering the
ballroom to let and as you can see it is now a furniture store.
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