Early Castle

This is a photo of the very early stages of The Castle Céilí Band. A rough guess regarding the date of this picture would place it between 1961-'62. I'm there on the left, that's Seán on fiddle, Seán Burke, Mick O'Connor, Con Hayes and Johnny Mac Namara from left to right. We all attended Drimnagh Castle Secondary School and that was where the name of the band came from. At thirteen I was very happy to be with a band as we played for a céilí at the Hollybrook Hotel in Clontarf. That hotel was years later to become the home for the Clontarf C.C.É. There was a photographer from the Sunday Press there that night and a picture of Seán and myself and this one of the band showed up in the Sunday morning paper. Having just looked at this photo again I am reminded of my mother putting me on the "stand" to investigate "how did those porter bottles that appeared in the picture come to be on the top of the piano?." After a lengthy trial, peace returned to "92" when the verdict came in: Innocent!