Campaign launched to rebuild Jimmy Gralton's Leitrim dance hall
Leitrim-based dancer, choreographer and artist, Edwina Guckian is part of a group of people launching a campaign to rebuild a local dance hall.
She said it is a century in the dreaming of many Leitrim people to rebuild Jimmy Gralton's hall on the very site of his old tin hall.
"Jimmy Gralton was a farmer, an emigrant, a returned man, and a dreamer with his feet firmly planted in Leitrim soil," Edwina explained in her newsletter.
"He believed in education, fairness, and the dignity of ordinary people. And those beliefs made him dangerous."
In 1921, with the help of his neighbours, Gralton built a dance hall on his land in Effrinagh, Drumsna near Carrick-on-Shannon in Leitrim, which Edwina described as "modest in size, vast in meaning".
"A place to dance, to learn, to speak freely - a hall for people, not profit or power," she said.
"Inside, music and dancers rattled the floorboards and ideas took root.
"But the hall was watched and condemned from church pulpits. Dancers were named and shamed. The local priests said the devil was in that dance hall.
"The hall was attacked on several occasions, shots fired in during dances and on Christmas Eve 1932 it was burned to the ground," Edwina outlined.
Branded "an undesirable alien", Gralton, though born in Ireland, was forcibly removed from the country by the Irish Free State, making him the only Irish citizen ever deported from Ireland.
"He never returned and died in New York in 1945," Edwina said.
"But Gralton’s dream and all he stood for lives on in the community of Effrinagh. We will rebuild his hall."
Raising the roof
The new building, which is expected to cost €350,000, will be a community space for everyone: local people, young and old, artists, learners, families, visitors, and neighbours near and far, according to Edwina.
"It will be a place where tradition and new ideas sit side-by-side, where people can move, make, question, celebrate, and belong," she said.
"Above all, it will be an open door, built on freedom, inclusion, and shared ownership, carrying the spirit of Jimmy Gralton’s vision into the present and the future."
Help is needed to raise the roof for Gralton, Edwina said.
"Our GoFundMe campaign has just launched," she said.
"Whatever donation you can give us will be hugely appreciated. We can’t wait to welcome you in the doors of Gralton’s hall for a dance some day."
To date, over €7,000 has been raised.
The rebuild project is being led by Paul Gralton, Edwina Guckian, John Dunne, Cormac Flynn, Mick Heslin, John Cronogue, Declan Guckian, Johnny Markey, and Davy Phelan.
