Irvine Folk Club - 14/09/15

Irvine Seagate Rotary had a busy meeting on Monday.  First it was President Adam Moonie’s pleasant duty to introduce Raymond Jamieson as a new member.  Raymond has the business Jamieson’s Motor Services in East Road.   The second popular occasion was the presentation of Honorary Membership to Andy Howat, who was a founder member and President in 1996.  This presentation was done by Fiona Lee.

Speaker for the evening was Anne Clark, President of Irvine Folk Club, supported by Joyce Hodge.  Anne has been involved in the Folk Club since the early 1970’s, and Joyce has been Treasurer since 1970.  The Folk Club was founded by a group including the late Joe Caldwell, with weekly meetings in the Eglinton Arms, in 1967, and the first acts included Matt McGinn, Arthur Argo and the Humblebums.  It soon expanded to run the Marymass folk festival which in the 1970’s was a ten day multi venue event featuring all of the well known artistes of the day from Scotland and overseas.  The folk scene is no longer the major force that it was, but Irvine Folk Club still has 60 members,

runs fortnightly evenings in the Vineburgh Centre and the 4 day Marymass festival, and attracts big names.  The talk evoked much nostalgia from those who had been present in the early days, remembering Danny Kyle, the Bitter Withy, Hamish Imlach and Finbar Furey among many others.  Eventually a Vote of Thanks was proposed by Dan Moriarty