| Dick O’Connell is rounding up strays off
the benches to fill sets, like a schoolmarm making sure there are no wallflowers.
He’s the organizer and teacher of the tradition in Ennis. My partner has braces, is
maybe 16 years old, and batters three times louder than any man in the hall.
"There’s nothing like the sound of a Clare dance floor," I tell her.
"Some don’t like it, especially him," she answers, gesturing to Dick.
" If you see him throwing dirty looks this way, it’s because of me." This
is teenage rebellion, Clare style. Anytime she caught Dick looking on, she’d pound
harder and faster, and throw in a high kick for good measure. I show my booklet of
photos to the woman next to me. "Do you know Dorothea Lange now? She took my picture,
in 1954. It’s in the book. I’m the little girl walking with three other girls to
school. I’m the one with the ribbon." A documentary is in production on
Lange’s Ireland work, and she’s been interviewed and flown to America for the
project. Like every Irish person I’ve |
talked to about this, she thinks the economic
good times are an anomaly. "It’s not good. There’s big houses sprouting up
everywhere. Too much money. When I was a child, people were poor, but they were happier.
There weren’t all these suicides like you have now. This will all come crashing down,
and we’ll be better off." Bernadette comments on my partner’s rebellious
style. "All the kids now are doing it that way. That’s not battering,
that’s banging. We’re going to lose the tradition that way." My perspective
is more sanguine. "That you have these conflicts is a great thing. It means the
tradition isn’t a fossil. It’s alive and changing. Your parent’s generation
is probably appalled at the way you dance now, don’t you think?" "Yes, that
might be true," she admits. "Then again I’m an American talking. If
it’s new, it must be good. Take it for what you will."
Doug Plummer
Ennis, Co. Clare |
