See You at the Hall: Boston’s Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance
From the 1940s to the mid-1960s, on several evenings a week, thousands of Irish and Irish Americans flocked from miles around to the huge, bustling dance halls—the Intercolonial, the Hibernian, Winslow Hall, the Dudley Street Opera House, the Rose Croix—that dotted Boston's Dudley Square. For the city's Irish population, the Roxbury neighborhood, with its ballrooms and thriving shopping district, was a vital center of social and cultural life, as well as a bridge from the old world to the new.
See You at the Hall brings to life the rich history of the “American capital of Galway” through the eyes of those who gathered and performed there. In this engaging look back at Boston's golden era of Irish traditional music, Susan Gedutis deftly weaves together engaging narrative with spirited personal reminiscences to trace the colorful dance hall period from its beginnings in 1940s Roxbury, when masses of young Irish flooded Boston following World War II, through its peak years in the 1950s, to its decline in the 1960s, when reduced immigration, urban social upheaval, and a shift in neighborhood demographics brought an end to the heyday of Irish dance hall music in Boston. After the last dance hall closed, Dudley Square musicians moved from the big ballrooms to pubs, social clubs, and private parties, preserving the music and passing it on to younger generations of Irish performers.
See You at the Hall the book was released in May 2004 and is available for purchase at our store. Also check out its companion CD: Irish Music of the 1950s.
On March 17, 2005, Lisa Mullins of BBC/The World featured Sue Gedutis in a special St. Patrick’s Day feature on Sue’s book, See You at the Hall. Buy it here.
From www.theworld.org:
When young Irish men and women arrived in the U.S. in the 1950s, they would meet to hear the familiar music from the old country. And the venues to hear these traditional tunes were the ‘dance halls’. Susan Gedutis wrote about those dance halls days in her book, See You at the Hall: Boston’s Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance. She talks to Lisa Mullins. Hear the interview. (Windows Media Player required.)
-And to read more from Sue, visit her blog:
