The Ireland Dispatches

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"Are you American, or have you lived there a long time?" my dance partner asks me after the first figure. I am delighted at the mere suggestion that I might be a lapsed local, and even more so that it might be my dancing skill that led her to compliment me. That’s my fantasy, anyway. "Thank you for even thinking I might be Irish," I reply. It is the opening dance of the Spiddel dance weekend, at a pub in the centre of town. P.J. Hernon and Mary Shannon are playing. In the interval before the dance, her sister Sharon’s music was playing on the house system, as it seems to be in every public place in Ireland these days.

This is not one of those big ceili weekends that attracts half of Dublin from across the country. The crowd is almost entirely local. The announcements are in Gaelic. The floor holds, at best, three sets comfortably and four with much bruising of elbows. Spectators crowd the perimeter, and most of them are smoking. The dancing is of the ‘round the house and mind the dresser’ variety, though I find myself dancing with my elbows out just to claim a tad more floor from the standing crowd.

My next partner is another American. I learn instantly that she is an exceptionally assertive dance partner. One misstep and she decides I need a lesson on the figure. "Across now, ok, we house now, " she demands. I’m a dancer who will never fully remember the figures or do them precisely or accurately, but the Irish forgive me my lapses. But apparently, I am reflecting badly on my country. Count on a fellow American to keep the miscreants like me in line.

At breakfast the next morning are two couples, both on the traditional American tour of Ireland, which is, drive like hell and circumnavigate the island in seven days. They’re not going to see much; it is still storming up a gale. There is nothing to stop the south wind here in Connemara, and sun and squall are in constant exchange. The sea, visible from my room, is a constant roil.

So it is a good day to stay indoors. Mick Mulkerrin is teaching the Monaghan Set. We’re in a wonderful, large hall outside of town. Morning light streams in through tall windows. After our first run through he admonishes us, "Connemara has a very staccato style of step. This is a reel set, smooth, like the Clare Lancers. Don’t do the Connemara style to these reel sets." This is the tone for the workshop—pay attention to style. The tone of the floor changes from a percussive, pounding beat to a quieter, respectful shuffle.

Evening. Hughes Pub is rapidly filling in. Johnny Connolly is holding his accordion, but he hasn’t started to play yet. A woman fills in the seat next to me, an Irish language student who is taking a night off from her studies. "Set dance, now, that’s just a foreign import. It’s not truly traditional," she says when I tell her why I’m in town. Harrumph, I think. I didn’t know this fight was still going on. "An import from the 18^th century," she asserts. I retort, "How far back do you want to go?" The Celts were a foreign import, if you want to extend that line of reasoning to its illogical end.

Mick arrives with his box, and soon an impromptu set forms to the delicious tones of the dual accordions. This feels pretty darn traditional to me. The pub is crowded and I have no room to maneuver, so I perch on my chair and shoot the scene from above. There’s no light to speak of, I’m handholding, and I have no right to expect this shot to turn out. But the composition from this angle is wonderful, and I hope for the best.

By the time I arrive at the ceili, Michael Sexton and his band are in full swing. I photograph for awhile, then join in on the Cashel Set. The American from last night agrees to dance, but I think she just wants another whack at me. "You need to hold me like this, more parallel." This is a figure where I’m swinging with my corner half the time. She’s much nicer: "You’re a lovely dancer. Thank you." For the Connemara I find my B&B lady, who is thrilled at the novelty of an actual male to dance with for a change. At last, a role I am unquestionably qualified to fulfill.

It is now Sunday. A sean nos workshop is on, led by Paraic Hopkins. "Sean nos is a natural dance. You don’t learn it, you just have it by nature," he announces, before proceeding to teach it. Nature has not blessed me this morning. The workshop leaves me overwhelmed—I can barely shuffle my way through a set dance this weekend, much less master this complex arrhythmic batter in an hour. I revert to journalist mode, and photograph it instead. The American teenager, whose legs I am shooting through, just placed 21^st in the All Ireland step dance competitions in Killarney. "This is way different," she exclaims. "You’d never hold your body this loose in competition."

I have a major poignancy attack at the afternoon ceili. It is my last dance in Ireland for this round. Fittingly, it is the Caledonian, the dance of Clare, where my most potent dance memories lie. I dance it with my eyes closed, feeling every step.