Dromcollogher Cinema Disaster remembered in new song
The Dromcollogher Burning was released by Irish folk-punk band Leevy
Irish folk-punk band Leevy are set to launch a new single later this month.
The Dromcollogher Burning was released by the five-piece band – who are from the Múscraí Gaeltacht in West Cork - on Friday, August 28.
Led by singer-songwriter Amhlaoibh McSweeney, the musical group's newest release focuses on the Dromcollogher Cinema Disaster.
Commemorating its centenary this year, the tragedy saw 48 men, women and children lose their lives on September 5, 1926.
The track has received high praise from locals affected by the event and historians alike for its empathetic approach to the humanity behind it.
Widely known as the Dromcollogher Cinema Disaster, the catastrophe came as a result of a fallen candle setting a blaze to a loft – which served as a cinema at the time – above a hardware store in the town.
Flammable nitrate film and minimal exit routes saw the fire spread rapidly, killing around one tenth of the town's population.
Leevy’s gentle folk track The Dromcollogher Burning speaks for one of the young victims of the fire, James Kenny.
The track encapsulates youth and innocence through the boy's feelings of anticipation for the new cinema opening in his small rural town and his intent on protecting his younger brother, who is “afraid of the dark, because he is young. He might be afraid of the film.”
Amhlaoibh shared that she had the "pleasure of performing the song for the people of Dromcollogher on last year’s 99th anniversary of the tragedy, where I got to speak with the committee and locals about the event and how it has continued to impact them all 100 years later."