Dancing like it's 1942 to wartime favourite tunes
Organised by Belfast City Council, the old style dance aimed to recreate the mood of 1942 with a swing band performing wartime favourites and US troops mingling among a female-dominated crowd of willing dance partners.
For one lady it proved to be a very emotional occasion.
Marie Brennan’s father was in the US Airforce, having met her mother from Co Meath following World War Two.
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Hide AdAlthough she considers herself to be an American, Marie now lives in Northern Ireland with her husband whom she met in Austria.
She said: “My father and mother met in London around 1949. I’ve spent most of my life back and forth between America and England, but now I call Northern Ireland my home.”
Marie said her father served in Vietnam and Korea and was also sent to Cape Canaveral.
“I’ve nearly been in tears so many times,” she said of yesterday’s event.
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Hide Ad“My mother and father are both dead and this has brought back so many happy memories of them.”
Also attending the event was 93-year-old Bill Eames, a flight lieutenant with the RAF during World War Two.
Mr Eames, who is originally from Enniskillen, was being trained in the US when American troops arrived in his homeland.
The pilot, who made one of the first D-Day landings in his glider, said dances such as the one taking place yesterday were not really his scene, though he added it had been a “pleasant day”.
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Hide AdJoyce McMullan, 86, said she remembered the US servicemen being in Northern Ireland but had not met any personally.
Joyce herself came to Northern Ireland from Jamaica when she married a soldier from Bushmills.
A resident at Sydenham Court, a supported housing scheme for people living with dementia, Joyce said she loved life in Northern Ireland and really enjoyed get togethers like yesterday’s anniversary event.
John Graham, 87, said the Ulster Hall event brought back memories of the first time he was there to see a boxing match between Benny Lynch and Jimmy Warnock.
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Hide Ad“I must have been about 10, and I remember my dad pointing up to the ceiling above the ring at the gas lights,” he said. “It’s changed a bit since then.”
He said the American troops had taken command of the Plaza Ballroom in Belfast, adding his family had enjoyed a memorable Christmas there thanks to their US hospitality.
The American troops in attendance at the dance were a group of history enthusiasts from Wartime Living History.