TIMELINE 1965-80
Sound City
4 Burgh Quay.
Big capacity beat club (up to 1500) in a basement.
Opened in December 1964 and hosted live beat bands. Proprietor was a young Tony Boland from the Evening Herald. BP Fallon DJ’d here on the opening night. Became Arthurs Place in 1966
Moulin Rouge
63a South Georges St
1960s club with swimming pool too!
The Flamingo
Abbey St,
Beat Club
Club Go Go
Sackville Place.
Blues and beat club, Smiley Bolger was a regular DJ here.
The Scene
Parnell Square
Basement Beat Club opposite Findlaters Church.
Opened in January 1966
Club Arthur
4 Burgh Quay,
Very popular big basement club in the city centre previously called Sound City. The mod clothes shop Even Steven opened a branch above the club – see advert above from Eve Herald
The Grove
Mount Prospect Avn, Clontarf
Moved to St. Paul’s College, Raheny in 1975
Local disco in hall, More here on RTE culture site
Crocs
41 Fitzwilliam St, D2
1967-69 in the basement of what was the Majestic Hotel, run by newly weds Kemi Fazel and Suzane MacDougald.
Sloppy’s (v1)
D’Olier St
Opened in late 1968. The first venue where disco and DJ presided over live music. More here
Le Disc
Molesworth St
Television Club
Harcourt St
Situated opposite Old Harcourt St Station and bought by Eamonn Andrews Studios group in the mid 1960s. Venue was previously called the Four Provinces Ballroom, used bu dance bands but also hosted discos.
Elizabeths
38 lower leeson st
The first of the clubs in Leeson St opened in 1969 and ran until 1976, owned by Tony Boland and featured DJs Ephrem Santiago (photo of 23 year old Ephrem above from Man Alive ) and Enaz.
The River Club
Bachelors Walk
Popular disco on the Quays but burned down in 1972
Tiffanys
Chapel Lane, D1
Big disco which ran for years. Located behind Penneys. Derek Nally DJ’d there for a while.
The Star Club
8a South King St
Across the road from the Gaiety. Thin Lizzy played here and Pat Egan DJ’d here.
2 Ages Discotheque
Burgh Quay
Revolution
Rutland Pl
Club in laneway Across from the Gaiety
Star Trek Mobile Disco
With the growing popularity of discos, the ballrooms began to struggle to compete with the new cost efficient club scene. Hans Lignell created StarTrek, a massive mobile disco which ballrooms could hire, complete with lights, sound rig, DJ and go go dancers. We introduced “disco music” to ballrooms all over Ireland at a time when they either danced to a contemporary popular showband such as Dickie Rock, or a country & western one such as Big Tom. more here
Garden of Eden
Eden Quay
Hotel disco at the Waldorf Hotel, Eden Quay.
Tara Club
D’Olier St
Located on the redeveloped site where the first Sloopys was. (beside Gas offices)
Blinkers
Leopardstown Racecourse
Suburban disco with fully licensed bar
Bubbles
Adair Lane, Fleet St
Teenage Disco
Lord Johns
Sackville Place
(photo Tony O’Malley Studio_
Amandas
Kildare St
Hotel disco with fully licensed bar.
Club Aprhodite
Leeson St
basement club on the strip.
(photo above from Man Alive fashion shoot 1974)
Annabels
Burlington Hotel
Hotel disco with fully licensed bar
Year opened TBC
Barbarella
Fitzwilliam Lane
Off Baggot St close to Zhivago
Another disco with a ‘swimming pool’
Samanthas
Leeson St
(photo Tony O’Malley studio for Magill 1978)
Silks
Phoenix Park
Disco at racecourse at weekends, with full bar license. Later called The End
Bojangles
Leeson St
photo 1978 Tony OMalley Studio
Sabrinas
Mary St
Sardis
Stillorgan
Suburban hotel disco at Stillorgan Park with fully licensed bar. (advert 1977)
McGonagles
South Anne St
It was the Crystal ballroom prior to being rock/new wave McGonagles but became home to some of the better discos in town in early 80s and later became the System.
Osibisa
South King St
Opposite Gaiety Theatre
(tbc: previously the Star Club?)
IGRM Phoenix Club
North Lotts Rd
Irish Gay Rights Movement disco, opened March 1979
Raffles
Morehampton Rd
At Sachs Hotel
Roller Drome
Pleasants St
First Dublin roller disco opened in July 1979 at the Olympic Ballroom
Tamangos
Portmarnock
Big lavish suburban hotel disco with full bar license and with expensive lighting and sound systems. Club reportedly cost £1.3m to open. Guests for the opening night on 25 June 1980 received the invitation as a record. (Thanks to Mícheál de Brún @thriftonaut for photo of invitation.)
Afrospot
Adair Lane, Fleet St
The interactive map and timeline above shows the location for over 40 clubs or discos and the year they opened in Dublin between 1965 and 1980.
This is a digital version of the information presented at our Dublin Discos 1965-80 exhibition which is free to view every Friday and Saturday from 4 o’clock until 11 pm at the Other Hand, Circular Bar, D8. More here...
In some cases we haven’t been able to establish the exact year when a few of these discos opened. If you have any additional information, or if you spot any errors or omissions, please get in touch with brian@brandnewretro.ie. We’d love to hear from you.
For more on the the first Dublin discos check out my recent piece for Totally Dublin also available online here
Thanks for reading, hope you can get to see the exhibition.
