Major wins for Mayo societies at awards ceremony

Castlebar Musical and Dramatic Society won two awards out of an unprecedented eight nominations at the recent Association of Irish Musical Societies awards ceremony in Killarney. 

Chris McLaughlin and Caoimhe Halligan scooped the very prestigious and highly coveted Best Male Singer and Best Female Singer, respectively, for their roles as Galileo and Scaramouche in the Society’s recently staged production of the hit musical ‘We Will Rock You’.

The society was also nominated and awarded runner-up in the following six categories: Best Director for Donna Ruane, Best Overall Show, Best Choral Singing, Best Visual, Best Technical and Best Ensemble.

It was a great night for the Western Region Musical Societies in general, with Rhea May Murphy winning the Outstanding Youth Performance Award for the Ballinrobe Musical Society, where they also picked up two runner-up awards for their production of ‘Frozen’, and the Claremorris Musical Society taking five runner-up awards for their production of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.