 After a slow start, the venue began to gain in popularity, and for Mary Black's concert in December 1989, Limerick audiences queued in the streets outside the theatre for the first time since John McCormack's concert in 1905.In February 1990, classical music was reintroduced to the theatre when the Tuckwell Wind Quartet gave a performance, and two weeks later, the Irish Operatic Repertory Company from Cork revived opera at the Royal with a choir of 45 singers.Disaster struck the Theatre Royal on 6 March 1990, when the newly restored theatre went on fire.