'The Beatles Irish Concerts' takes a fun trip back in time

May 9, 8:54 AMBeatles ExaminerSteve Marinucci

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  The cover of "The Beatles Irish Concerts."

"The Beatles Irish Concerts" (Capel Island Books) is a wonderfully vivid look back at Beatlemania and the group's trips to Ireland from 1963-64.

Beatle history buffs will enjoy the detail of author Colm Keane's' work. The book is filled with interviews of fans who were there and musicians who worked with them, among them Peter Jay of Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers and Jean Owen and Maggie Stredder of the Vernons Girls.

It has plenty of stories of seeing the Fabs and trying to meet them. Kids skipped school, faked their way into press conferences and basically did whatever they could to get anywhere near them.

Take the case of Ken Ronan, then aged 14, and his friend who took a chance that the Beatles were staying in the Gresham Hotel in late 1963.

"We were walking up and down O'Connell Street trying to be anonymous because there were truant officers about in those days. We got to the Gresham at about a quarter to two. We went into the hotel, straight into the foyer. We walked past the doorman. And there, straight in front of us, were the Beatles sitting down," Ronan tells the author.

The book also recalls that one of the observers at a Beatles press conference at the Adelphi Theater was screenwriter Alun Owen, who was working on the yet-unfinished screenplay that later became "A Hard Day's Night." Owen prophesized, "I hope this film will be like nothing that's ever been done before."

 The book contains eight pages of rare pictures.

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