The Story of Irish Dance

From dancing at the crossroads to Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, Irish dance has swept the world in spectacular fashion making it the dance phenomenon of its generation. It was, unusually, during the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest where this international phenomenon was launched – an eight minute “filler” gripped the imagination of the watching European television audience and Riverdance took off.

To the watching Germans, Finns and citizens of thirty other European countries, the sight of dozens of glamorous black-clad dancers tapping and kicking in time, arms held resolutely by their sides, was a new and thrilling experience. Largely, they were unaware of the background of Irish dance – forged in the enclosed and competitive world of the dance competitions held throughout Ireland and wherever there was a significant Irish emigrant population – England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, USA, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The glamorous image which Irish dance now enjoys is far removed from Feiseanna held in dusty parish halls where sweat and discipline were the most prized possessions. Some people say that Riverdance put the sex back into Irish dance - others say that it was never there in the first place!

It is known that around the time of the 1920s everybody danced in Ireland. Where did this cultural expression come from? The true origins of Irish dance are shrouded in the mist of history. What is certain is that Irish dance is a fusion of many influences both from within Ireland and beyond. The earliest forms of our dances are jigs and hornpipes, which have a recorded history in Ireland of several hundred years.

Many of the dances originated from further afield. From the 1780s the Quadrilles, a courtly affair danced by the French aristocracy, spread to Irish society and eventually filtered down to the peasants. These dances were taught by foreign dancing masters who brought many new dances to Ireland. Today in parts of Northern Ireland the Quadrilles are still danced with that old stately restraint. Out of this developed the informal style of group dancing which became known as Set dancing which took place in public and usually outside on a platform at the crossroads. From the Sets Sean-nos dancing developed - a wild and raw form of solo dancing which usually took place in kitchens and parlours throughout rural Ireland. Until very recently Sean-nos dancing was kept alive only by old men in remote parts of Ireland but, happily, today it is enjoying a revival.

The wild abandon of Sean-nos dancing and the close contact of Set dancing came under the scrutiny of the dancing masters. They targeted one area of change in particular, which was to define the future of Irish dance forever – the use of the hands. The dancing masters frowned upon expressive use of the hands and made dancers put their hands down by their sides. They put a length of twine tied to a stone onto the palm to make a clenched fist and keep arms down, took the smile of the face and changed Irish dance completely from a very lovely informal style into today’s very formal style of the traditional dance.

At the turn of the century Douglas Hyde, who was to become the first president of Ireland, founded the Gaelic League, whose expressed purpose was to lead to a revival of all things Gaelic – language, literature, games, music and of course dance. The Gaelic League regularised the set dances and the new formal version was christened Ceili Dancing while the stiff solo and competitive form was called Step dancing. By the 1920s these developments were so successful at popularising Irish dance that practically everybody in Ireland danced. The clergy, worried that the set dancing occurring at every crossroads in rural Ireland would lead to “an occasion for sin” took control of the newly formalised Ceili dancing, which most often happened indoors in parish halls. The Clergy’s obsession with all matters sexual lead to a minimising of touching between partners in Ceili dancing, and the complete removal of all sensuality in step-dancing. This new clergy inspired style of Ceili dancing effectively took what little sex there was out of Irish dance.

Irish Dance and Tap Dance have always been linked. It is said that tap dancing legends such as Gene Kelly and Jimmy Cagney learned Irish Dance first, before moving on to tap. World renowned tap dancer and teacher Jimmy Payne also began his dancing career with jigs and reels. Many believe that the one of the roots of tap dance is Irish Dance. Merged with English clog dancing and various African rhythms forms of tap dancing were performed as early as the 1820s.