One foot in the rave

In September 1995, Kilbeggan was earmarked to host Tribal Gathering, a dance-oriented festival expected to attract 20,000 attendees. This is the story of what happened. By Seamus Enright

By the mid-90s Tribal Gathering had earned its stripes as a powerhouse brand on the UK rave scene. The May 1995 edition at Otmoor Park, Beckley, near Oxford, featured The Prodigy, Orbital and Moby. It attracted tens of thousands and barely a whiff of serious trouble. This was rave legitimised – licensed and loud.

“It was a big success. It sold out. I think we had about 30,000 people there and it ran to six or seven in the morning,” remembers Mick O’Keeffe, formerly of Mean Fiddler and current owner of The Market Bar in Waterford.

A chartered accountant turned music exec, O’Keeffe moved to London in 1991 where he immediately sought out Mean Fiddler, founded by fellow Waterford man, the late Vince Power. He introduced himself via an old-school letter. Two sons of the Déise drawn together. They “hit it off” straight away and a decade-long collaboration followed.

Buoyed by the UK success, the Tribal team believed Ireland was ready for something similar. Early publicity promised cutting-edge sound, lighting, lasers, and themed décor and four tented stages.

‘Commence countdown and prepare yourself for an exhilarating voyage into house hyperspace and beyond, at Ireland’s most outrageous, orgasmic organic orgy of underground dance music ever.’

In hindsight O’Keeffe admits to “not realising” that local authorities, law enforcement, and even public attitudes were far more cautious than the UK – at least a decade behind.

The plan for Ireland was just as ambitious: a legal, licensed, all-night dance festival featuring recognised headliners, impressive staging, and a crowd of thousands.

A venue was secured – Rostella House in Kilbeggan – offered by local landowner Seán Nyhan. Everything seemed set.

Some 40 DJs, 10 live acts, and a circus troupe of artistes, performers and dancers were lined up for the event, which was to run 2-7am on Sunday, September 30, 1995.

DJs were to include Justin Robertson, David Holmes, Carl Cox, Sven Vath, Rocky and Diesel, Norman Jay, Sasha, Pete Tong, Charlie Hall, Billy Nasty, Johnny Moy, Billy Scurry, Jeff Mills, Mark Kavanagh and many more. This line-up was to be joined by The Prodigy, The Orb, The Grid, Sunscreem and Dublin's own Liquid Wheel.

Then it began to unravel.

In April 1995 an unsanctioned rave at Ryefield, near Virginia, County Cavan, attracted an enormous garda operation marshalled to strangle access. What made it past the barricades was a mere ghost of what the event promised. Hundreds of ecstasy tablets were seized. The ripple effect was massive. Ryefield heightened already existing fears about drugs and public safety – the perception that rave culture came with chaos.

Stephen Wynne Jones is an award-winning journalist, magazine editor, DJ and business commentator. His 909originals online platform is dedicated to uncovering the stories behind some of the greatest electronic music tracks, artists and venues of the past, present and future, including the failed attempt to stage Tribal Gathering in Westmeath and then Cavan in 1995.

“The limited number of venues playing underground dance music at the start of the ’90s meant that many ravers travelled long distances in search of beats,” he says.

Even though gardaí had no powers to stop the Ryefield rave outright, the backlash caught Tribal Gathering in the cross-hairs.

Death at the Depot

If Ryefield was a warning shot, Dance Nation at the Point Depot in June 1995 was the hammer blow. A 19-year-old died. The mood soured and ecstasy became a household word, and a tetchy political talking point.

Minister for Justice Nora Owen stated in the Dáil. “Many see this drug as an integral part of the so-called rave scene. I ask the national media, both broadcast and print, to be careful not to fall into the trap of glamorising this drug. They have a responsibility to the community not to give young people the impression that this drug is in some way cool. I consider it a matter of deep regret and highly unhelpful that this drug has had such a propaganda effort mounted on its behalf.”

Planning Paradox

What ultimately sank Tribal Gathering was a High Court ruling in June 1995, which declared that all large-scale music events – especially overnight ones – required full planning permission.

The ruling came during the scramble around Féile ’95, which had to abandon Mondello Park for a late-stage reprieve in Cork. Féile got lucky, Tribal Gathering not so much.

Hundreds attended a public meeting, packing out St James’s Hall in Kilbeggan that August, where promoter Melvyn Benn was joined by landowner Mr Nyhan in putting forward a strong case as to why Tribal Gathering should go ahead. “This event is not about hippies or New Age Travellers,” said Mr Benn, now managing director of Electric Picnic organisers Festival Republic, addressing that particular shared fear.

Despite reassurances, the concerns were the same: drugs, noise, and moral decay. Where Slane and Féile had normalised big crowds and live music, thoughts of an all-night dance event seemed somehow dangerous. “At all times, we must keep our dignity in the fight against this event,” one speaker – a school teacher – told the Kilbeggan meeting. Another said: “Help the community to protect our youth and our elderly people.”

When Westmeath folded, the promoters found a fallback: Cavan Equestrian Centre. It had hosted music events before, including American country music singer, songwriter Don Williams the year before. Owners, the Clarke family, were on board and, importantly, the feeling was planning permission wouldn’t be a problem.

Tickets went back on sale, priced at a relatively pocket-friendly £25, and promotions resumed. The Prodigy- explosive, in-your-face feral, unmissable, were locked in. The dream flickered again.

Then with just two weeks to go, the council citing the legal precedent from June, and with the ghost of Ryefield still howling in the background, applied the handbrake.

Vince Power of Mean Fiddler lashed out publicly, accusing gardaí and councils of discrimination. A country and western gig, he claimed, wouldn’t have faced the same level of scrutiny. His phrase “the kind of people they assumed might attend” cut deep. The biggest Irish rave of the decade now hit headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Certainly O’Keeffe feels that Irish authorities were “behind” the times in their understanding of rave culture and what the scene really represented. It was a fundamental and fatal misunderstanding.

“They were a bit more reactive to the scare stories and the whole drug side of it.”

In time, things changed. Rave didn’t die, it matured. While Britpop dominated headlines, 1995 was a quietly becoming a landmark year for dance music and the age of hedonism – the era of Leftfield, Underworld, Goldie, Tricky, Daft Punk, and The Chemical Brothers. For all the moral panic and tabloid horror, rave became the beating heart of something bigger.

Ireland today boasts events like Electric Picnic, Life Festival, and All Together Now. Dance tents. All-night parties. Nobody panics. Nobody calls the bishop.

“If you look back through the media coverage of the rave scene throughout most of the ’90s, it is almost entirely negative,” says Wynne Jones 909 Originals. “Scare stories about ‘ecstasy deaths’ and ‘dens of iniquity’ that overlooked the fact that Ireland’s youth were embracing a powerful new movement.

“In the years that followed, there was no stopping its momentum, as what had previously been dismissed as an evil, passing fad, became intertwined with popular culture, and society at large.”