An Interview
by
Annie from Dublin
The serious pursuit of competition in Irish Dance, as in any field, must involve enormous dedication of time and energy on behalf of young dancers’ families. Also, with the ever-increasing pressures of the economic climate and the expansion of the competitions across the world, the financial cost of pursuing the competition circuit must be increasing all the time as well. Is there currently any way for young dancers to be aided in this regard, or is it something that has yet to be considered by the authoritative bodies in the dance world? It seems especially important in regard to an art form that originally belonged to the ordinary people of Ireland. Do you see any solutions?
At the moment, and I can’t see it changing in any way, the dancers are very much self-funded. All the costs of competition are borne by the individual dancer.
The only way to which that is minimized at all is that many dancing schools do fund-raising, and they have a school fund. So if they do exhibitions or if they do concert work or whatever, and they get paid for this, the teachers put it into a fund. They’re in a better position to fund-raise in America, believe it or not, than they are in Ireland, because if you ask somebody in Ireland ‘will you help to fund me to go and do Irish Dancing in America?’ they say ‘What? I can’t even afford to go there myself!’
But in America, the Irish-American community there is so proud of it that if you run an event and if you hold dinner or a ceili, all the Irish community will support you. And the idea -- they see the lovely little Irish kids there dressed up in their Irish costumes and they’re going to Ireland to compete in the World Championships -- and the Americans will cough up the dollars!
So it’s a different scenario there -- far easier to fun-raise. But the onus is on either the individual dancer or the teacher or the class to do their own fund-raising towards the cost of competition. And the costs of competition itself become enormous.
I suppose things were never cheap, you know. It’s like we say the cost of housing is enormous now, but was there ever a time when we said housing is dirt-cheap, let’s buy a dozen of them?!
Things are relative to the times, but nowadays a lot of the costs are parent-driven. And the whole costumes is a big huge chestnut -- one that I have very strong feelings on -- that is the excessively ornate, highly adorned costumes.
This is the parents living the parents’ fantasy, not the child. In many cases the child is too young to know, and it has gone way out of proportion, even to the extent of spraying gold glitter on their faces now when they’re five and six and seven and eight years of age!
It’s the little Las Vegas beauty princess, my little princess, my little doll kind of thing; it’s that syndrome, and that is the parent - ninety percent of it is the mothers. But we do say there’s only one thing worse in Irish Dance than a dancing mother, and that’s a dancing father!
But the same thing is happening in other walks of life. For example, we have it here in Ireland, being such a Catholic country we have Confirmation, we have First Communion, and the children are now going on suntan beds to get them tanned for their First Communion, and some of the dresses that they wear, they’re like little miniature brides, parasols and everything. So this is the parents really going overboard, and very often I think you will find that it is those who can least afford it who are doing it, because very often the upper classes, or professional classes will say to the child ‘I’m sorry, love. You’re only beginning Irish Dancing, or you’re only beginning to play the piano, and when you are able to play it and I know that you’re committed to it, then we will make the investment.'
But very often the more deprived classes are the people who seem to say ‘ I want to make sure my child will want for nothing' and they go perhaps overboard. But certainly there is no law laid down that says these costumes must be worn in that sense.
I felt so strongly about this that as Vice Chairman of the Dancing Commission, I introduced a document, around the time of the Eurovision Song Contest,in which I laid down guidelines on how to control the costumes. For example, a young child starting off who’s a beginner and is in a beginner category, that they should be made to wear a skirt and blouse, and look nice and get the placing of the feet proper. You don’t buy a baby grand piano in the first six weeks that your child is learning to thump up Baa-baa-black-sheep on the piano, so why in the dancing do you do this? So up until they reach a certain age and a certain standard you could tell them ‘no, you cannot wear this or that’.
One section of that document that I put forward did bear fruit. The section on the girls’ costumes was shot down. There was a lot of pressure from America in particular that the children should be allowed to wear as elaborate a costume as they wanted to, and I’m sorry if I offend anyone - I’m not really sorry if I offend anyone - I stated that this is Irish culture and we should have the right to control it.
The section of my document that was accepted was that the kilts and jackets and all that for the boys, the male dancers, was not obligatory, that they could wear trousers and shirt, and that adjudicators could not penalize them in any way. That was accepted. However, accepted was one thing - you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink!
Telling the adjudicators that you’ve got to accept it is one thing but getting them to accept it was another thing.
And by the way my reason for being against the kilts was, eh, two reasons, one that the kilts were never Irish! That is a load of baloney that they were, there is no proof whatsoever that they were ever Irish. They were all taken on following the Gaelic League revival, to try to develop a national identity. So there was no proof, no historical basis for wearing this costume.
Secondly, the other thing was it definitely gave an effeminate image to it, particularly little boys going through that vulnerable young age when they were being accused of being sissy and they wouldn’t want anybody at school to know they were wearing this thing or been seen in it.
Suddenly, along comes Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance -- macho image, open shirt, displaying the hairs on his chest, and every boy in the country wants to be an Irish dancer! The whole image of Irish Dancing, the whole acceptability of dancing has changed, due to getting rid of the kilts - and by the way in competition, I was looking at the All Ireland Championships this year and I numerically combined two competitions and it roughly gave me a hundred male dancers, and there was something like four dancers, or five maybe, wearing kilts.
Now the bottom line is that was a statement from the boys telling us ‘we do not want to wear the kilts and we are delighted to dance in the trousers and jackets and that, and Michael Flatley and Lord of the Dance and the resulting consequent shows', they put their stamp of approval on it and so it’s totally accepted.
So now we have a situation where you’re sending your little boy to dancing, and ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen years of age he’s at World Championship level, and what does he have to wear? He can wear a nice shirt, nice trousers, normal everyday expenditure, and be a World Champion.
The girls meanwhile, because of this mother-driven thing, are required to pay somewhere in the region of £600 to £1,600 for costume, make-up and so on. That is utterly ridiculous.
If I might put it to you this way - you take, say Jean Butler, in Riverdance or a dancer in Lord of the Dance in a simplistic costume - You don’t look at them to say ‘isn’t that a beautiful costume!’ You look at the feet and footwork and the body form, and the girls in all of those fantastic lines when they do those dance steps synchronized down to a fraction of a second -- the timing of it must surely be the greatest perfection of a dance form ever seen on this planet, you know! It's not the costume, it's the dancing that is the important thing!
You don’t say ‘oh, wouldn’t she be lovely if she had a multicolored costume costing a couple of thousand pounds with a blue panel, a cerise thing covered with rhinestones dotted with embroidery and applique, five tiaras on her head.'
It’s all so unnecessary. What it will take is sometime, a top World Champion dancer to go up there and dance in a simplistic, minimalistic type of costume, and win. Mind you, the girls’ costumes did go into a state of fluctuation, and some of them did try those, what I would call a Riverdance type of costume, but complete simplistic type of costume such as you see in Riverdance doesn’t really come off in competition.
In Riverdance they are using the body and using the hands, therefore you can have flimsy, sort of skimpy sort of costume, bordering on a type of ballet costume. You can use that when you are using your whole body to express something.
Now, in traditional Irish Dancing when you come out and you have your hands by your side, fairly strict kind of thing, that simplistic kind of costume doesn’t come off very well. Plus you come out and you stand there for eight bars - it may sound very simple but it takes a tremendous amount of self-confidence to come out and stand on the stage in any of those flimsy (and I don’t use the word in any derogatory manner) costumes, particularly for a girl if she is any way big in the thighs, or on top.
They are designed for a model figure. They’re also designed for a person who has that confidence that can come out and stand on that stage, stand there with an audience looking at them. It does take a tremendous amount of self-confidence and assurance to wear that. Some girls tried them in competition and they didn’t come off completely because it is a different dance genre.
The answer that I would see is that there is a halfway stage and I think eventually they will get there, hopefully, because all these crowns and tiaras and the face covered with gold paint and all that has really gone too far.
Your involvement with Irish Dance has taken you all over the world at this point. Tell me about some of the more unexpected and unusual places and events it has taken you to.
Well, I suppose that without doubt the most unusual place that I have been is to South Africa the past two years. The background there was that there was a lady there, in Johannesburg, by the name of Shanna Robinson, and she came in contact with some videos of Irish Dancing.
She became quite intrigued by this and she started teaching some of the basics to her dancers. She was a Highland dancing teacher, by the in the way, in Johannesburg - and the other Highland teachers, on seeing her dancers perform this asked her about it and she said to them ‘oh, this is the new kind of Irish Dancing that they’re doing,' and they became quite intrigued by it and asked her to teach them, which she did, what little she knew herself, and then they made contact with the IDC here in Ireland.
I took up contact on behalf of the IDC, and so that all started less than 3 years ago. In 1999 I traveled out for the first time, and they had roughly 400 dancers there and they did their grade exams. I went back out there again this year, and the dancing, the improvement has been just mind-boggling!
Would this be black children as well as white children?
Very few blacks still, yes - apartheid may be gone in South Africa in name, but the whole economic structure and social class distinction is there, you know.
You would imagine the dance would in fact be a wonderful way to bring the children together since the black community seem to have a tremendous sense of innate rhythm, don’t they?
Yes. They actually do. I met Irish musicians out there who had been up to Suweto, the township outside Johannesburg, and they found the black children up there had this wonderful sense of rhythm, and they said to me ‘if you think the Irish are good at traditional music, you should see these kids!’
So this year I did have a few black children learning the dancing and I thought this was fantastic. And just one little anecdote comes to mind - I had one lad -- oh, he would be this big tall, stocky guy, and he was doing his grade one and two dances, with me, and he came up to me and told me he got a great kick out of it because recently he was back in West Cork at a wedding of a friend of his.
Now this man has no Irish connections at all, and he’s South African-born and bred, speaks Afrikaans and everything, and at this wedding back in West Cork he heard the music and discovered he could do his dances to it, and at the wedding, to the amazement of everybody this guy from Africa stood up and put on his exhibition of Irish Dancing!
So they’re the lovely things. Then there’s a photograph of me actually taken in Nairobi in Kenya on Patrick’s night in 1999, and we actually have a teacher out there. She doesn’t actually teach in Nairobi but she lives there. Maria Cunningham is her name, and she is a qualified Irish Dancing teacher. She works for the United Nations and has been living in Kenya now for I think about 15 or 18 years, and during St. Patrick’s night I was up in Nairobi with them and we -- Maria, her sister, her sister’s daughter and myself put on an exhibition of dancing on Patrick’s night.
So these are the aspects of Irish Dancing that I really enjoy now. The other places that I’ve gone to are the northernmost parts of Queensland in Australia, up the Barrier Reef area to Cairns, to Townsville, a mining town about six or eight hundred miles inland in North Queensland by the name of Mount Isa. I’ve been all over that place. I fly around in these small, little tiny planes, and I’ve been going there now for about ten or twelve years, so it’s like a second home to me, going back and visiting the kids again and it’s absolutely wonderful.
This year I went on to North Queensland from South Africa and I got stuck in a hurricane up there. We had Hurricane Tizzy that hit the coastline of Townsville while I was there this year which disrupted the grade exams quite a bit!
And some of the dancers learning Irish Dancing there actually live on the islands off the coast. One girl lives on Magnetic Island, for example, which is out on the Barrier Reef, and due to the hurricane she was unable to get off the island to do her grade exams.
And I had another little child in North Queensland, one of the most unusual stories I had, was unable to do her little dancing exams because - you won’t believe this - horror of horrors, a few weeks before she was actually attacked by a crocodile! But glad to say she survived and will dance again.
I believe when you went to South Africa you had the opportunity of meeting with one of the touring commercial dance troupes, and I’ m sure you found the members, as I always have whenever I have had the pleasure of meeting some of them, wonderful young ambassadors for our country as well as great performers. Do you think the touring shows have in fact turned out to be not just chances to have dreams come true but also highly valuable education platforms for the young Irish generation?
Oh, they’re fantastic. Certainly, recapping on that, when I was in Johannesburg this year, I was going out there and I met one of the troupes from Lord of the Dance. I know them all from dancing.
Daire Nolan and his family -- his parents are my best friends. I’ve known all Daire’s family since since before he was born! (Note: you can read the interview with Tony Nolan at Nathalie's site.) So they’ve grown up as little kids and I’ve always been very much involved as organizer of the All Irelands and World Championships and all of these events. So I’m putting these little kiddies up on the stage, and sometimes when they would break down or forget their step I would bring them over and give them a hug and put them back up again.
I mean nowadays of course you can’t give a child a hug or even embrace them, and children need hugs and children need love.
So all these dancers -- Bernadette Flynn, Gillian Norris, Daire Nolan -- I’ve known all of them since they were little kids -- and so it was arranged that I would attend their last performance in Johannesburg and a number of the South African teachers and pupils came with me, and it was I think the happiest day and night of my life.
I couldn’t believe that I was in a theatre in Africa looking up at these now internationally famous, acclaimed people. I cried, and I’m not embarrassed about it.
I cried with emotion to see how far Irish Dancing had come, and to see these people, the standing that they had and the awe in which they were held. The South African dancers -- many of them trained up to university level in all dance forms and so on -- just absolutely adoring and worshipping the ground they walked upon.
And there was a double edge to this sword, because through my intervention Daire Nolan had arranged for some of the dancers to come back to the studio where I was staying in Johannesburg. Now this was all kept a little hush-hush. Sue Theron, the teacher there, did the arranging, and told all in the studio that they were to have so many dancers and so many parents back to her house that night, and didn’t quite tell them what - I think some of them may have known. And so the big excitement was they were going to get to meet the stars of Lord of the Dance.
And after the show in Johannesburg we went backstage and met Bernadette Flynn and Gillian Norris, Daire and it was so happy.
Damien O’Kane, playing the lead, said to me that night jokingly ‘I hope you didn’t pay for that seat!’
Well, I said, I didn’t get a free ticket from you, if that’s what you mean.
‘No, but I hope you didn’t pay for the seat,’ says he, ‘ you didn’t spend any time sitting down in it!’ I spent most of the show on my feet applauding!
Of course, all the cast knew where I was in the audience. I was actually only about 8 rows back and at the very center of the theatre, so the word got round very quickly and they spotted me.
We met them after the show, and then to my absolute amazement Daire told me all the dancers, plus the musicians and the singers, were all coming back for the party, and they came back to the studio where this teacher had arranged all the South Africans. We arranged a fleet of cars to collect them at their hotel. So they went back to the hotel first to change and freshen up, and by the time they came to the teacher's studio where the studio was attached to her house with a beautiful magnificent garden front and back , the frenzy that was there, waiting for their arrival, was just unbelievable!
The only time I ever saw anything like was for the Beatles! So I had to take the South African dancers and warn them, ‘you’re not to take photographs and you’re not to ask for autographs until we find out how they feel,’ because I wanted above all for them to have their evening and their party.
But it was one of the greatest nights of my life because here I am greeting all of these and getting kisses and hugs and some of the little dancers coming up and saying ‘Oh, Mr. Cullinane!’ kind of such a thing, from the dancing and that. Then some of the others I was meeting -- the Johannesburg dancers for the first time that year -- and they were giving me hugs and saying ‘it’s great to see you again!’ As the cast was coming back I was just amazed how these little girls I've known have become these fantastic and beautiful young women...
The topic of how these dancers have turned out to become is actually a conversation I had with some visiting Professors in Limerick University who were there designing a program. One of the points I made was that none of them have gone to acting school, none of them had any formal training on how to behave for interviews, how to react to audience, how to handle reporters and all that, be ambassadors for Ireland, and they were superb, and they really are.
I worship the ground they walk on -- each and every one of them -- and some of them I met out there in South Africa again, I mean, seventeen-year-olds.
What was lovely was by the end of that night the barriers had totally broken down. They were all talking about Irish Dancing, the steps they learned and what they did with the South Africans. The beautiful thing was here you had seventeen-year-olds, eighteen-year-olds mixing -- boys and girls -- and this common thing, Irish Dancing.
But their behavior and the pressures that they undergo are enormous, because here they are -- they’re on Broadway, the Royal Variety Performance in London when Riverdance got a standing ovation -- the longest, biggest standing ovation in history, from a nation that if anything should have been almost hostile to Irish culture.
If you could take an Irish culture show into the heart of Britain, and this is even before the Peace process that we have now, and the reception that show got there, and these dancers were out there taking a 10, 12 minute standing ovation...
I think Shirley Bassey or one of those, was the only other one to have ever got a standing ovation at the Royal Variety Performance, and that is enormous pressure for these people. And then they change out of that and they have to go to a reception after the show, and there they are, young girls and boys and they have to be in evening dress, and handbags and full gloves. And there’s a big reception on for them and the top brass of America is turning up for this reception.
Now here was a kid - I call her a kid because I've known her since she was 5 or 6, and there they were -- one day she’s in school, doing her Leaving Certification, and the next day here she is, emerging from a stretch limo, with a red carpet and television cameras on them as they entered the Plaza Hotel on Central Park for a reception with the press from all over the world, the eyes of the press on them, and they all attired in the evening dresses, and gowns etc. and there was so much talent there, and like it or lump it, you have to say ‘Hats off!’ to Flatley.
It was like a volcano, but he was the one who took the lid off and let it explode, showed it that it had to explode. The talent was there!
And coming back to the point -- all this training, that education that they got, because one has to remember most of them, very few of them had completed third level education, most of them if they got as far as their Leaving certification, because the recruitment now is, any dancer that comes off the stage in a competition at 16, 17, grab them, you know. So, their training comes from Irish Dancing and from the discipline that competing at an All Ireland and World Championship imposes upon them, and the friendships as well, because they survive, the rigors are pretty hectic as well, and being away, you know, 17-year-olds in South Africa for 6 weeks, when I met them out there.
The one wonderful bond is that since they all came up in competition they all knew each other and they all know the dancing community. So for example if they’re performing in such-and-such a place, the Munster Championships are on, they all want to know did anyone hear who won such-a-thing? And as soon as one gets a phone call with a bit of news they all find out who won what and that’s a tremendous communal bond among all of them. It’s not as though, like in other stage work they may be a troupe that came from totally different backgrounds and never knew each other before the show; these have grown up with their parents knowing each other, with their teachers knowing each other, you know, there’s generations cementing that bond.
It must be unique in today’s world?
Yes, and what is also very unique is some of the love affairs that have come out of it. I won’t mention names but I heard two of them saying ‘well, before this show, now if I’d thought my daughter was going to end up going out with your son!'
But here they are now touring around the world and you have so many tremendous friendships and love affairs and everything going on.
In 1999 you received the first MA in Irish Dancing to be awarded in the Republic of Ireland, a first class honors for your thesis on the history of Irish Dance in Cork from 1890 to 1940. - May I add my congratulations on that great achievement - Do you think this too is another opening for young people in the new century, which will encourage respect as well as enthusiasm for Irish Dance?
Yes, without a doubt. I have a whole archive collection, which I refer to as the Cullinane Archive Collection of Irish Dance material and it’s hard to know. I can’t say when I started it.
I didn’t start it on the 1st January such-and-such a year. It was an interest -- a fascination. I went to old dance masters and listened to them. Then some of them would give me a letter, news cutting or something, and then gradually at some stage I realized that I had this lot of stuff around my house and I better put it into some order, and gradually it’s expanded so now I have about 4,000 items in that.
Do you foresee that becoming a museum of Irish Dance at some stage?
Hopefully, absolutely. Unfortunately my deep regret is that the Irish Dancing Commission does not seem to be going down that road at all whatsoever. And I have had offers from American universities and American institutions to actually purchase my collections, and whereas I’m flattered - as anyone would be - I am also very upset because the situation is that any material like that is that America has got the money and can buy it and our libraries and archives in Ireland cannot compete with that.
And hence of course (I don’t wish in any way to compare myself with such people) but all the material on Joyce and on all our famous writers are all in American archives. I was lecturing in Boston College recently and looking at a lot of material belonging to the Yeats family, and it’s sad.
It’s great in one way because the Irish community in America had the foresight to see the value of this and that’s good, but it’s sad that so much of that material has to leave Ireland. If you want to study Joyce or Yeats or any Irish writer, author or artist, you’re better off almost to go to America.
This is the first and - I’m pretty positive on this - the only collection of Irish Dancing memorabilia, archive material in the whole world, and it should be somewhere in Ireland and hopefully be the nucleus. But my greatest desire is that it should go into the university here in Cork and expand. Fortunately, what started almost like a sort of a stamp collection hobby when I was young is now being appreciated.
When I started it there was no understanding or appreciation. Some of my colleagues in the IDC said that after the Late Late Show we had for Michael Flatley, ‘you know, John, at meetings there for 20, 30 years you were nagging at us about your archives and your collection and I used to say ‘oh God, this man will he ever give up? What’s this archive thing he’s talking about, will we ever just give it to him, whatever he wants about it. We really didn’t even know what you were after, but now there’s a global appreciation - I think not only in the Irish Dancing - there’s an appreciation in every walk of life now that what is rubbish today is archive collection down the road.
We are learning. There is a greater awareness in every facet of life, but certainly in the dancing largely because of the shows there is a huge awareness of our heritage in dancing, and in the Irish Dancing community itself, the IDC and the teachers.
When I started writing my books first they were saying ‘what’s this about’ and ‘God, look, there’s a photograph of me in there and I look appalling!’ Now the attitude is, ‘Excuse me, John, I’ve looked at your book and there’s not a photograph of any of our dancing groups - do you realize there’s no photograph of my teacher in any of your books?’ And some people can really give me stick, and use language - which is a compliment in its own way, you know.
So there’s quite a change, and even in our Irish Dancing community and I would say a great appreciation of where it’s coming from. Coming back to the MA, the record there goes something like this - I did apply (I have a BA, by the way, in History from London University, way back about 1965 or so) and I applied to our Irish universities many years ago here for to do a degree, to present a thesis on Irish Dancing.
‘Irish Dancing? For a degree? In a university? A thesis? Are you for real? - Why was this? We have departments dealing with Irish music; we have loads of departments dealing with Irish literature; we have departments dealing with Irish language.'
Now I defy anybody to tell me, which is the most vibrant aspect of our culture. Worldwide, at the moment? Interestingly, and ironically, not what the Gaelic League promoted - the Gaelic League was set up to promote the language and the literature - and they’re the two aspects that are now almost the most neglected and gone by the board, and the two that they only brought on as a sort of secondary factor was the music and the dancing, and isn’t it ironic that the dancing is the thing that has taken off now so much worldwide, and the music.
And our universities will cater for the language and the literature. And I’m in favor of the Irish language, but let’s get things in proportion. They would have Chairs and Professors of Old Irish, Middle Irish, Modern Irish, but they couldn’t even conceive that Irish Dancing, such an art form could ever be presented for a thesis. And it’s the greatest time I think in our history, to be so proud of being Irish. You go anywhere in the world, in these decades, and be so proud, because our culture - as you know, Germany, they can’t get enough of Irish culture - any place we go, not just even the totally traditional but our artists, The Corrs, Daniel O’Donnell, it seems as though at the moment we can’t do anything wrong!
But the appreciation of Irish Dancing was just not there. I applied to universities, was rejected - now, okay, there two other people who did theses before me, and I want to emphasize this, a point that was missed in the Irish Times article, Helen Brennan (she’s in Co. Louth) and she did a thesis on Sean Nòs dancing as it’s called - somebody might not understand the Irish, it means the old style, handed down type of Irish Dancing, not formal, informal dancing - but she had to do her thesis through the North of Ireland, Colraine or Ulster. She had to go outside the Republic of Ireland to present her thesis.
Catherine Foley in Limerick did her doctorate thesis on the Kerry Dance Masters; it was presented in London. Our Irish universities had turned down several people and wouldn’t accept them. Now another point is that one of the best theses that I know of, documenting the history of Irish Dancing in any city in the world, is almost certainly one dealing with the history of Irish Dancing in Chicago, by Kate Flannigan. She learned her dancing in Chicago, she’s Irish American there, and she lectures at a college, not quite in Chicago, but she has a two-volume Ph.D. thesis on Irish Dancing.
What date was that?
Oh, round about 1995, 1996, because I wrote a few articles on Irish Dancing in our dancing magazine called Ceim, and then later, it was after that that she took up that topic and researched it and produced two volumes, and researched all the newspapers in Chicago. And of course Chicago, New York, Boston, were very great strongholds for our Irish communities, as anybody with the music would know, Chief O’Neil, the famous collector of all our traditional Irish music that we have - it was nearly all collected there in Chicago. So it’s a tremendous stronghold, and she has a wonderful, wonderful thesis.
There’s no such equivalent for, say, for Dublin, there’s no such equivalent written for Limerick. My thesis, my MA thesis, for Cork and Catherine’s one on Kerry, would be the nearest, but again a lot of Catherine’s was dealing with notation and that, so Kathleen Flannigan’s thesis was tremendous.
Still our universities are more open now to accepting Irish Dancing but still don’t know where it fits in. What happened with me was there was an MA advertised in History in Cork University - I thought it was actually to do with a local history of Cork, but I misinterpreted what it meant. It meant that you took a local topic for an MA. So I went along to find out about it only to be told it’s not as in the history of Cork in the locality. It’s local as in you take a topic on a local level, and so I was asked ‘are you interested?’ and I said well, yes, if I could do a thesis on the history of Irish Dancing in Cork, and they said ‘Oh, and can you do an outline of that? Because we really wouldn’t have too much experience of supervising,' and so I made up my outline.
I had, by the way, interestingly enough applied to do an MA through Bath University, before that, because they have an Irish Studies department there. The Director of Irish Studies there. An extremely nice man, he said ‘No problem having you on board!’ and before that as well Professor Blackler in Queens’ University, Belfast wrote back to me and told me he would have no problem having me as a Ph.D. in the Department of Anthropology there. No problem in Belfast, to take me on for a Ph.D., or Helen Brennan for an MA, but not in our Irish Universities.
And would it be the same if you went to them today?
They’re breaking down, but they still don’t know quite where the dancing comes in. But the Bath one was interesting because he said to me ‘One of my greatest problems would be I would actually need someone who would be willing to act as examiner on that thesis.’
So he put out feelers all over England and he contacted Patrick O’Sullivan who was the Editor of a six-volume series on Irish migrants produced by Leicester University, and he came back to me and said ‘ well, I didn’t have a problem finding somebody nominating to examine the thesis, I got six replies and they were all in agreement - John Cullinane in Ireland was the only one who would be qualified ! So it was back to me myself.
So I went ahead through the History Department here, the head of the Folklore section in the History Department and I presented my thesis, and that would be the first time a Masters degree was awarded in a university in the Republic dealing with the History of Irish Dancing, taking that on board.
Around that time as well Limerick set up its program on dance, and the Irish Dance of course is a strong element in that program. And again, of course, I must say ‘Hats off!’ to Mìchael O’Suilleàbhain and I’ve co-operated with them there and helped them get things going and lectured there.
But the social snobbery that was mitigated against Irish Dancing was incredible, but secondly, our Irish universities, particularly the one we’re sitting in here [Cork], because they’ve been in existence for 150 years they were locked into structures, you know, such watertight compartments. And it’s only in recent times that they’re just beginning to realize that education was a bit broader than just Latin, Botany, Medicine and so on. So things are changing, but slowly.
This CelticCafeDANCERS mail list has already brought together over 200 Irish dancers and interested fans who enjoy discussing all aspects of the art. This includes step-by-step instructions of many of the dances seen in the major shows like Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames, Riverdance, Dancing on Dangerous Ground, Gaelforce Dance, etc. Whether you're a dancer or a wanna-be dancer or just a fan interested in what goes into the world of Irish dance, this list is for you.
Cover Image Title and Description Irish Dancing Costumes, Their Origins and Evolution
Fascinating study of the evolution of costume in Irish Dancing, including unique period photographic record from as early as 1892.
123 pages. softcover. b/w photographs. First published 1996.
Aspects of the History of Irish Dancing in North America
Study og the history of Irish Dancing in Norht America from research begun when Dr. Cullinane was first invited to give workshops in San Francisco in 1972. Includes photographs and sections on different regions of North America, also details of costume evolution and feiseanna in North America.
99 pages. softcover. b/w phtographs. First published 1997.
Aspects of the History of Ceili Dancing 1897-1997
Produced to celebrate the centenary of the foundation of Ceili Dancing, includes valuable photographic records plus sections on the origins, the contribution of the Gaelic League, classification of Ceili Dances and an account of the First Ceili in London, 1897.
80 pages. softcover. b/w phtographs. First published 1998.
Aspects of the History of Irish Dancing in Ireland, England, New Zealand, North America and Australia
First look at world history of Irish Dancing. Includes excellent gallery of photographs, plus sections on the history of the Ceili dancing, the dancing masters, costumes, the Cork contribution, feiseanna, competition, dancing around the world.
185 pages. softcover. b/w photographs. First published 1987.
Further Aspects of the History of Irish Dancing (Ireland, Scotland, Canada, America, N. Zealand and Australia)
This is a real reference book, listing accounts of feseanna and competitions of various years in the different places, and is clearly meant to be read in conjunction with the first book of the title.
150 pages. softcover. b/w photographs. First published 1990.
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Last updated on October 24, 2000
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