‘Dilemma’ for Youth band with no venue to rehearse
Members of Clondalkin Youth Band

‘Dilemma’ for Youth band with no venue to rehearse

THERE is concern and worry amongst the members of Clondalkin Youth Band as they have been left without a premises to rehearse in after 37 years at St Joseph’s Boy’s National School in Clondalkin.

A new autism unit has been proposed to be built in the premises of the school, which will incorporate the area that has been used by the band to practice, resulting in them having to vacate and search for a new location.

Founded in 1986, the band are one of Ireland’s largest marching and concert bands in the country and have won numerous awards teaching and performing in Ireland and around the world.

According to the director of the band, Vincent Dolan, finding a new location is no easy feat as the large band needs a premises that is large enough to rehearse, as well as storage for large instruments and other equipment they need.

Describing the situation as “critical”, Vincent says emergency meetings are taking place to help find a solution and to secure a suitable venue for the band before the end of March.

“At present, our committee is looking at various options to find some sort of a premises for us”, he explained.

“Our problem is that we need somewhere that we can store all of our equipment. We have a lot of uniforms, larger instruments, percussion and we also need somewhere that we can go into in the evening for classes and full band rehearsals which require a reasonable amount of space.

The band had an emergency meeting with the committee, parents, senior members and local politicians yesterday evening, Wednesday, January 26, at Knockmitten Church to explore options.

“We are facing a bit of a dilemma -I have people working on the project and some local politicians are seeing if we can come up with a solution to the problem”, added Vincent.

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