Ardoyne: The hippy shaker of north Belfast who went viral 60 years on

"Madness, absolute madness - look at the arms - I can't stop laughing at it."

Born, raised and still living in Ardoyne in north Belfast, Jackie Meehan watched on as his younger self waved arms and shook hips without a care in the world.

Aged 10 and sporting a black waistcoat, Jackie played a starring role in a special piece of BBC Northern Ireland archive which went viral online last week.

The 1964 clip from a parish hall at Holy Cross Church shows childhood innocence at its most sublime.

"Look at all those kids, the joy on their faces. Everybody's getting out to enjoy themselves," Jackie told BBC News NI when shown the footage.

"Even though we were out playing on the street all week, this was our big night out even though it was a Sunday afternoon."

The footage, which has amassed thousands of likes and retweets, was tweeted by BBC News NI Education Correspondent Robbie Meredith, sparking a newsroom-wide search to track down some of north Belfast's grooviest, almost six decades later.

Many calls were made, appeals were issued on BBC Radio Ulster, and every shop, community centre and church were called upon in Ardoyne with little avail.

Then, BBC News NI discovered Jackie Meehan's association with the video through a Facebook post.

Now aged 68, with four children and nine grandchildren, the former labourer and plasterer said his sporting prowess as a child can account for the moves on display.

"I was in boxing since I was six and I boxed for a club called St John Bosco on Donegall Street. We were always taught to dance in the ring," he explained.

"You had to be nimble on your feet."

But why was there a disco in a church hall?

Jackie said the events took place after Sunday Mass at Holy Cross, with the young attendees "psyching themselves up" for the dance floor.

The full footage from 1964, which can be viewed on BBC Rewind, is a report by Trevor Philpott for the Tonight programme on the slower pace of life in Northern Ireland on a Sunday.

However, there was nothing slow about the young dancers as they went crazy for the Hippy Hippy Shake.

The reporter said that for the Holy Cross children "heaven was only a minute away in the school hall next door".

'That's not music'

The 1960s is a decade synonymous with a wave of cultural and musical change, and Northern Ireland was no different, according to Jackie.

"This was like an opening up of music. My dad was into Perry Como, Jim Reeves, and all of a sudden The Beatles and The Rolling Stones come onto the scene.

"It all changed and my dad used to say to me, 'that's not music'."

The result - Jackie turned the music "up full-blast".

"It was a complete change of culture from my daddy and mummy's era and now the Beatles, the Stones, Elvis Presley, everything changed."

However, his father being a ballroom dancer may have been an influence on young Jackie's impressive twist.

"He could never get up to dance because my mother would never let him dance with another woman," Jackie recalled.

In the video, two girls dance in front of Jackie with moves the now-pensioner can only describe as "exceptional".

"You think how many hours they spent in the house practicing to get that dance - they just didn't go up to do that," he said.

Jackie Meehan points out his old childhood friends to BBC News NI's James Kelly

The archive report shows the parochial hall full of children dancing along to a band with £1,500 (now worth an estimated £21,000 with inflation) of electronic equipment, including three £200 guitars, and a premiere drum set.

Another Ardoyne resident who recalls "great memories" of the Holy Cross disco was Bernadette Mailey, who offered a possible explanation to the exuberance on the dance floor.

Bernadette, who said she was aged about six when the footage was recorded, said there were prizes like colouring books for the best dancers in the hall.

Among those to comment on the video was the singer Alison Moyet.

"Bloody love this," she said. "Kids like us in the 60s. Look at those girls go. How brilliant."