History of Irish Dance
"Bow of Ribbon"
From Irish Dancing Magazine, when it used to print gems like these. Used with permission.
Picture, from top clockwise: Nellie (13), Tyrone (7), Mona (11), and Maureen?.
Maureen McKenna was born in Tyneside, in the North of England, to Irish parents. Her mother from Cork, her father from Northern Ireland. Having spent many years away from the dancing scene, and now living in Ontario, Canada, she recently attended a feis and couldn’t believe her eyes! She wrote to us, totally amazed at the difference in costumes and hairstyles for the girls and the notable absence of kilts for the boys. This prompted her to reminisce about her Irish dancing family and here she shares with us some of her childhood memories.
"These photos are of my mother’s sisters and brothers. There were 6 girls and one boy and they all danced for varying amounts of time.
My Mother, the eldest, taught dancing in our church hall but it was all "figure" -- as we called it then. I have a very vague memory of dancing a 3-hand reel as a 7 or 8 year old in a Feis in Durham -- on a large platform -- in a field! I seem to remember Scottish and country dancing too and music competitions, but its very vague.
The three main dancers in her family were the three oldest in the photo's, according to what I picked up from family talk as a kid, they dancing around Dublin, I think, in the early 20’s and were known as the Mooney trio.
Their names were Nellie, Mona, and Sean Mooney. They all became adjudicators but only one taught dancing. The eldest one, Nellie Ryan, has a school in Cashel beofre she died. Amongst all the cousins in my generation, only her 2 daughters and myself actually stayed in dancing very long.
I never remember my younger aunt doing any adjudicating when I danced but I know my uncle did and he could be a bit of a pain at times. When I danced the championship, it was at the end of the Feis and comprised the winners of the solo dancers in each age group. We sat in a half circle on the stage and each of us did a step in turn. He was judging and evidently, at the championship, he wanted to see 2 girls dance again. They had done a hard shoe step and he wanted a reel step, but to save time he told them not to change shoes (the hard shoes at that time were not as noisy as they are now). One girl objected and argued and finally threw her shoes at him, which he immeadiately picked up and threw back at her! He was a great joy to us kids, as he seemed as mad as we were, despite being the stage manager of the Abbey Theatre!
One girl objected and argued and finally threw her shoes at him, which he immeadiately picked up and threw back at her!
When I received my back issues of IDM, I just couldn’t read them fast enough. It was like being a kid in Ireland again and listening to my Aunts talking about Cora Cadwell and Peg Meddler and Eileen Dewling, although I can’t remember whether they danced with them or learned from them. However, the article that really took me back was the one on the Flautist, John Doonan (July/Aug 98 issue); I myself had learned dancing at the Tara Club in Newcastle, where we had a teacher coming down from Glasgow at first, then the adults in the class separated and each started their own classes. John Doonan came to a Feis with us in Birkenhead once and a couple of mothers were heard threatening to complain about out "unfair advantage"! Every time one of us went on stage, there was absolute silence when the flute started. It was such a contrast to the perpetual fiddle. They insisted we were "attracting the judges attention" (two of us were eavesdropping round a corner). The fact that everyone of us went home with at least one medal was, of course, not due to our dancing abilities, but to John’s beautiful flute playing! Seriously though, he was great to dance to.
I went to my first Feis in 40 years here in Ottawa recently and boy was it an eye-opener. I started to like the dresses -- some of them -- and even got used to the loud shoes but it was the "head gear" that really got to me.
Still, when I think back, in my day, it was bows of ribbon. They seemed to get bigger and bigger and my father once commented: "One good gust of wind and you'll end up floating off over the roof tops!"
Anyway, I really didn’t intend this to turn into such a long screed, but somehow I seem to have been carried away!"