Sing your cares away at Ballinrobe’s Sing Song Social

After four sold-out gigs in Croke Park, you’d think the nation would have enough of Coldplay by now. Not in Ballinrobe, where a group of singers recently rehearsed, recorded and published a fabulous rendition of one of the band’s biggest hits in an old convent – in just two hours.
How? With a camera phone, two-dozen people, a friendly musical director, gallons of tea and a barrel of laughs. That’s what the Sing Song Social is all about.
With a thriving musical society and two church choirs, singers are in no short supply in Ballinrobe. Where the Sing Song Social differs is that there are no public performances, no dressing-up, no dolling-up. None of the jig-acting that goes with joining a choir.
Last Tuesday evening, 26 women and two men gathered in a room in the old convent in Ballinrobe – as they have done monthly since March 2022 – for one reason only: to sing and have fun.
“It’s the social aspect, more than anything else,” local woman Siobhán Campbell tells The Mayo News at the end of their September sing-song.
“For that hour and a half – there’s just something about it – you just forget about anything that has happened that day or what you might have to face tomorrow, and you’re just focusing on the pure joy and fun of singing a song, it’s as simple as that. I’d highly recommend it.”

Laid-back fun
A star performer with Ballinrobe Musical Society for over 20 years, Siobhán has been a member of the Sing Song Social from the start, and she wouldn’t miss it for the world.
But there are some who only appear every now and again. And that’s totally fine.
“They come for a few months and then they drop off and they might reappear six months later. That’s the beauty of it, because it’s no commitment,” explains Gwen Costello, who co-founded the Sing Song Social with her sister, Petraea, and friend Deirdre Garvey.
“Myself and Petraea wouldn’t be great singers. I’d never sing on my own, but I love singing and so does she, and we just wanted to sing in a group and not on our own and no pressure.
“We wanted other people to be able to do that and not to feel like ‘Gasp! I’ll have to read music, I’ll have to audition, I’ll have to go every week’ or ‘I’ll have to sing at Mass’.”
Fun, laid-back, come-and-go-as-you-please choirs are a novel but not entirely original concept.
So-called ‘pop-up choirs’ have sprung up all over the country, like the 500-strong choir Gwen and Petraea attended in a lecture hall in ATU Galway before it fell foul of Covid.
“I said it to Petraea and to Deirdre one day, ‘Do you think we could start one ourselves?’. They said, ‘Well who would we get to teach the music?’. I said, ‘I think I might know the person!’,” she smiles, turning towards Sing Song Social’s musical director Mary Grealis, who immediately bursts into laughter.
“This was still in the thick of Covid when one could say yes to something and feel ‘That’ll never happen!’,” jokes Mary, an experienced music teacher and chorus mistress from Castlebar who is no stranger to Ballinrobe.
“I have a very strong affinity with Ballinrobe people, having joined the musical society in 2009 as a complete outsider and not knowing anybody and just thinking ‘Oh my God, these people are just so welcoming’. That sort of stayed with me.”
And so, the Sing Song Social rose from the ashes of pandemic restrictions in the spring of 2022. Petraea secured the use of the convent through Frank Keane, who owns the playschool housed in the nuns’ old domain.
Before long, Frank himself got roped into this nearly all-female choir. He hasn’t looked back since.
“Any man that’s around that can sing half a note, get in there. It’s good for the soul,” Frank tells The Mayo News. “It’s good for the head and good for the mind. A lot of people come here and they leave all their worries outside that door. They come in here and they sing them out. It’s brilliant for that.”

Smiling faces
In two-and-a-half years, the singers have never done the same song twice, and they’ve never failed to perfect the occasionally complex tunes from start to finish in one evening.
Not only that, the singers are completely unaware of what song they’ll be learning until they’ve the tae drank and the vocal cords activated. A tad risky perhaps?
“No,” says Gwen, who recalls having to sing ‘Dancing Queen’, the one ABBA song she doesn’t like, at one pop-choir in ATU Galway.
“I think if I’d known the song beforehand, I might not have gone. But I really enjoyed it, so I was glad I did it. By keeping it secret, there’s no preconceived ideas.”
Safe to say, if you arrive at the Sing Song Social as a stranger, you will leave as a friend.
“There was one lady that came in here… she was like this outside the door,” says Gwen, performing an apprehensive gesture. “ I could see her psyching herself up to come in, and I went out to her and she said ‘Oh my God a smiling face, thank you so much!’. She came in, and she knew somebody, and then I introduced her to somebody else, and she was fine. When I met her outside when she was leaving she said, ‘Thank you so much for the smiling face. I was really daunted by the idea but it was lovely. I had such a lovely time’ – that’s all you can ask for.”
“Cup of tea, biscuits, water, chat, brilliant,” Frank chimes in.
“I get such energy from it,” adds Mary. “I wouldn’t be able to do it if I wasn’t getting everything back from the group.”
Before we leave, we are treated to a joyful, harmonious rendition of ‘Viva La Vida’, probably not heard live in these parts since Chris Martin and the boys rocked Croker back in August.
At the end, the room is filled with laughter, chatter and goodbyes that stretch for almost half an hour.
Guess you don’t need to fork out €100-odd and travel to Dublin to enjoy Coldplay for a few hours. The old convent in Ballinrobe will do just the job.

To find out more, visit the Sing Song Social page on Facebook.