Weather Girls shine brightest at Hollymount Lip Sync

The McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris was rocking for the Hollymount Community Development’s extremely successful Lip Sync event last month, at which Boyzone star Keith Duffy was among the judges.

After months of fervent rehearsals, fourteen acts took to the stage to put on a memorable show in front of an audience of over 700 people.

The acts performed in front of four celebrity judges, with Keith Duffy joined by Aidan Tierney (AKA Tierney Talks), MEP and former Rose of Tralee Marie Walsh and Fair City’s George McMahon. The master of ceremonies was Longford comedian, Jimmy Connell, better known through his social media page ‘Jimmy Jests’.

The evening began with a group dance performance led by Hollymount Community Development chairman, Noel Connelly, and a selection of the Lip Sync acts, including some of the younger performers who brought fantastic energy and colour to the stage. It was then the turn of the acts themselves to strut their stuff, and they certainly didn’t disappoint!

Each brought energy, passion and plenty of humour to the stage. The first half of the evening included such diverse acts as YMCA, Salt-N-Pepa, Queen, Lehinch Legends, Grease, Buddy Holly and was finished off by a scarcely believable appearance by Nathy Gilligan as Michael Flatley performing Riverdance.

At the interval, chairman Noel Connelly and his committee drew the winners of their monster raffle prizes with Michael Prendergast coming out of the drum as the winner of a week in the sun. There was a wonderful array of prizes on show all evening for the lucky dip raffle with vouchers, hampers and bottles galore. There was hardly a family in the audience who didn’t leave with a prize of some sort!

The second-half of the show certainly didn’t disappoint with acts including Meatloaf, Sister Act, The Weather Girls, Joe’s Brolly Men, the Back Street Boys and the Spice Girls plus a top-secret appearance by Fr Michael Murphy, Parish Priest of Roundfort, Robeen and Carras, who played the saxophone to My Lovely Horse. By the end of the night, the audience were on their feet applauding the extremely high calibre of performances that they had witnessed. The evening will live long in the memories of people from Hollymount and beyond as an unforgettable display of local talent.

The purpose of it all was to fundraise for the improvement of community sporting facilities in Hollymount village and over the last number of months, every single participant put in a huge effort to contribute to the fundraising total.

In his closing speech, Noel Connelly expressed sincere thanks to the event sponsors Danny McHugh (Supermacs), Kavanagh’s SuperValu Claremorris and Corrib Oil for their extremely generous support. Noel also thanked the judges for their involvement with the event and Lip Sync Battles Ireland for their high-quality production on the evening. Noel also wished to thank local councillors Michael Burke, Tom Connolly, Richard Finn, Patsy O’Brien and Damien Ryan for their unwavering support and encouragement and the hardworking Lip Sync committee for their long hours in diligently pulling all strands of the event together.

Hollymount Community Development had chosen Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation as their charity partner for the event and Martina Jennings, CEO, expressed her sincere gratitude to the committee and the entire community who, from the outset, got behind the event and put in a colossal effort to ensure the success of the project. Martina was delighted to announce that Mayo Roscommon Hospice were making plans for the construction of the first children’s hospice outside of Dublin and this news was warmly welcomed by the assembled audience.

The last job on the night was for the judges to announce their winning act and, from a top three (in no particular order) of Salt-N-Pepa, The Weather Girls and My Lovely Horse, The Weather Girls were announced as the winners. There were joyous celebrations on stage and for the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend as The Weather Girls celebrated their success. The group consisted of six fabulous ladies, Teresa McGovern, Majella Gardiner, Siobhan Connolly, Anne Connelly, Mary Moran and Annette McCabe and they were joined by six seasoned performers in John Conroy, Michael Conroy, David Gardiner, Richard Hennelly, Pat McGovern and Mike Connolly for an unforgettable performance of ‘It’s Raining Men’.

The committee thanked all who took part in Lip Sync, sold raffle cards, held fundraising events, took an ad in the event programme, donated raffle prizes and everyone who contributed anything, big or small, to this wonderful community initiative. The phenomenal support saw the fundraising total surpass all expectations and targets.