From the archives: And the band played on - after terrifying storm
By Tom Gillespie
MOTORISTS were terror-stricken 58 years ago when a four-mile stretch of road between Bellacorick and Bangor Erris in north Mayo became a nightmare.
The road was covered under tons of rock and soil as landslides followed a freak three-hour thunder and rain storm which flooded neighbouring farmlands and homes.
Thousands of pounds of damage was caused to crops, and farmers had to leave their cottages until the floods subsided.
The drama began about 6 p.m. when the Royal Chords Showband from Castlebar were setting out to play at a dance in Aughoose, 60 miles away.
“Just as we started off the storm broke,” Mr. P.J. Hennelly, who was driving the band’s mini-bus, told The Connaught Telegraph on June 16, 1966, adding: “And the journey which followed was a nightmare.
“As we passed the power station in Bellacorick, the storm, which up to then had been pretty violent, became positively horrific. The clouds opened and we were caught in the worse deluge of rain I have ever experienced.”
The pounding rain loosened thousands of tons of rocks and soil on the surrounding hillsides. And then the landslides started.
A mile from the power station - which was demolished on October 14, 2007 - three cars found the road blocked. It took a half hour to clear a passage through the mountainous pile of rubble.
“The drivers had to roll up their trousers, and one man even put on bathing togs to free their cars as the water swirled around them,” said eyewitness Mr. Hennelly.
But, after getting past hazard number one, the band’s mini-bus had travelled only a few hundred yards when it was stopped by another landslide.
“It was really terrifying to see the whole hillside moving slowly down onto the road,” said Royal Chords rhythm guitarist Paddy Jordan. “Then came the floods sweeping away crops and hay and anything else that was in their path.”
The eight band members were feverishly trying to clear away some rubble when a heavy truck arrived from Bangor and managed to carve out a rough roadway.
But a passenger in the truck had more bad news for the musicians. “My car had been marooned in three feet of water further up the road,” he told them.
Mr. Hennelly added: “In all we encountered six landslides on one mile of road, and it took us almost two hours to travel four miles from Bellacorick to Bangor. Everywhere there were cars stranded, and I thought we would never get through.”
Two hundred dancers who had waited patiently at Aughoose for the Royal Chords cheered when they arrived - almost two hours late.
And they roared their approval when vocalist Steve Jordan grabbed the mike and set the hall rocking with Elvis Presley’s ‘Such A Night’!
“We went home by Ballycastle,” Mr. Hennelly added. “It meant a 20-mile detour but we could not risk going back by the other road.”
Several houses and most of the neighbouring farms were flooded.
Miss Bridget McAndrew, who lived with her sister Margaret on a hillside farm at Largan, Bellacorick, said: “I thought it was the end of the world. For days before the storm we could feel the land moving slowly.
“Our meadow lands are completely flooded, and we are writing to the county engineer asking him to clean and keep open the drains from the mountain.”