Formed in Dungannon, County Tyrone by school friends Joe Ross (Guitar), Paul McBride (Macker) Rhythm Guitar and vocals), Paul Connolly (Onion) (Drums) and Feargal Quinn (Fergie) (Bass and vocals). All shared a common interest in Music and when Punk Rock came along they were bitten by the bug and decided to form their own band.

1978 saw their local Youth Club gave them a room to rehearse in and they also kindly provided some basic equipment. The leaders of the club were Seamey Parkes and Barry Lynch. Barry took a particular interest in the band and became their mentor as he was a musician himself.

Punk seemed so accessible to the band as they couldn’t really play and learning covers by the Ramones, UK Subs and the Damned helped them learn their instruments. In the summer of 1979 the local newspaper The Tyrone Courier attended a band rehearsal and later ran an article on the band. This created a local buzz and motivated the lads to set a date for their first gig.

The debut gig took place prior to a Disco on Halloween night 31st October 1979 at the Youth Club in Dungannon. It had been talked about in school for months and on the night was attended by upwards of 400 people. I mention school because Fergie was still only 15 years of age. Two other bands, The Nimnules (Dungannon) and Strictly Prohibited (Moy) also played in the same bill. The gig was a resounding success and talked about by local kids for ages and they wanted to know when the next one was.

The band returned to the Youth Club for several more gigs before embarking to play the legendary home of Belfast punk - the Harp Bar. The band had bought records by local Belfast bands like the Outcasts and Rudi and knew that the Harp Bar was the place to play. Unfortunately the lads couldn’t get into Belfast as often as they would have liked because they were all so young at the time.

In 1980 the Youth Club entered the band into an audition at Maysfield Leisure Centre in Belfast, to play on the Saturday morning kids show “Fun Factory”. The band impressed the judges and won the audition which 100s had applied for. This generated great Press in the mid Ulster area for the lads but unfortunately bad luck was to strike. There was a musician’s union strike the month they were to appear on TV and the show had to be cancelled as no live music was allowed to be played on TV during the strike.

The band pushed on playing a few gigs and with the help of Barry Lynch got a spot at The Glen Rock festival in 1980. The band finally split up in 1981.

The Inflateable Dolls reformed in 2003 when Macker and Onions befriended Stevie Mohan, owner of a local fashion shop CUBA. He asked the band to reform for a punk themed fashion show. The band duly obliged and have played sporadically ever since.