Where Is Our Local Band?

Where Is Our Local Band?

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“THAT Ballina’s commercial wealth,

And tone and business shine,

Is in advance of other parts,

And towns along the line.

Can’t longer be a phrase of doubt,

With those who take a stand,

In public life and hence we ask—

“Where is our local band?”

Our Urban Council’s taken up

With topics new and bright,

They talk and differ week by week

About electric light;

A lot of other things would seem

Important to be planned

To modernise this splendid town,

Where is our local band?

In recent years, at intervals,

We heard its music strains,

Which gladdened all our hearts alike,

No brass band now obtains,

Our public meetings, too, are dull,

No mirth they can command,

No wonder then so many ask—

“Where is our local band?”

Perhaps it was obnoxious,

Perhaps it was too plain,

To suit our new-born feelings,

Aspiring and so vain;

With time our march is onward,

We’re social—hand in hand,

And yet the query whispers—

“Where is our local band?” 

Our football team, the Stephenites,

So chivalrous and brave,

Has honoured us with victories,

Their banners proudly wave.

’Twas said they left for Limerick,

To bravely take a stand,

Against the Kerry Eagles team,

Without a leading band.

The neighbouring towns and villages

Have each a band or two;

Where out brass band has vanished

I do not know—do you?

It may not be so long ‘at sea,’

And yet play so grand,

But what of that when strangers ask—

“Where is our local Band?”

                                                                 

                            “Ora Pro Nobis”

{First printed in the “Ballina Herald on May 18th, 1905.

Reprinted in 1946}.