Top Hat menu courtesy of Jim Mcloughlin.
Top Hat plate courtesy of Sadhbh Devlin.
Top Hat chinaware courtesy of Dave Cullen.
The Top Hat Ballroom has played a very important part of my and my family’s lives. This was where my parents met for the first time on an August Bank Holiday weekend in, I think, 1955. This has always been the family memory as we went on Sunday outings to Dún Laoghaire as kids during the 1960s and into the 70s and passed the Top Hat.
My mother was from Clontarf and she and two of her sisters had gone over for the dance, probably with a gang from Clontarf. They were part of a wide circle of hockey and swimming friends.
My father was originally from Boyle Co Roscommon and had moved to Dublin for work in 1952. He lived in Rathgar until they got married and moved to Rathfarnham, where they both still live. My father was involved with amateur dramatics in his spare time and would have gone (on the motorbike) to the dance.