Has anybody been exposed to Irish Dancing recently? Let me elucidate. I am a person of vaguely Irish heritage, married to a lady of strongly Irish heritage, and from time to time we are obliged to attend Catholic society events, which will at some point, inevitably, involve a display of Irish dancing.
Now Irish Dancing is weird. There’s no two ways about it. It usually consists of a lot of young ladies of various ages, dressed in multi-coloured costumes that wouldn’t look out of place in a super hero comic – plus a solitary, more soberly attired lad, with an expression on his face that suggests he’d rather be skate boarding with his mates. They all troop out onto a dance floor and stand around looking sullen while they wait for somebody to cue their tape.
Next, some atmospheric music plays. You know the kind of thing – a long, sonorous drone, augmented with wailing voices and what sound like outtakes from the soundtrack of The Omen. After a timely interval, violins and accordions take up a strident traditional tune; whereupon, the said participants start to imitate the prancing of horses, leaping about the place in an apparent attempt to get their legs located somewhere up behind their ears, all the while keeping their arms resolutely pinioned against their sides, as though to move them in any way will result in a particularly nasty form of detention.
Sometimes, the young ladies wear ballet shoes, which isn’t so bad. They leap and skitter, but they make no sound, so you can just try to enjoy the music. On other occasions they wear metal edged clogs and every so often, they tap out a furious rhythm, which generally seems to have no bearing upon the music that serves as their backing track. It’s just random, as though a battalion of carpenters have all started hammering home a series of carpet tacks simultaneously; or a Morse Code operator is having some kind of brain storm whilst trying to impart a vital piece of information.
The question that always occurs to me at such times is, ‘what’s this all about?’ I mean, if dancing is supposed to be an expression of joy, these capering, leaping ninnies aren’t getting that idea across to me at all – on the contrary, they appear to be undergoing some kind of awful penance. Oh yes, there’s generally a fixed grin on each face as the torture unwinds but it conveys no real sense of pleasure. As the girls (and the solitary teenage lad) leap and twirl and go clippety cloppety around the room, proud parents (well, Mothers, if I’m being truthful) press around them and unleash a storm of flash photography, though one wonders who is going to want to view the end results.
The other question that occurs to me is, ‘how authentic is this?’ Morris Dancers (God help them) claim to be upholding ancient traditions that go back to medieval times and they’re probably right, because getting pissed on cider, wearing a silly hat and striking your mate repeatedly over the head with a stick probably passed for entertainment in those days; but where is the archaeological evidence that supports the idea of lots of teenage Celtic lasses dressing in eye-popping outfits and leaping about like they’ve just had a 5,000 volt cable shoved up their rear ends? Of course, such performances are always rewarded with rapturous applause from the audiences – standing ovations even – but I remain to be convinced that it’s a worthwhile enterprise. Wouldn’t the participants be happier to wear their old jeans and leap about to a pop record or something? Isn’t that somehow a more valid expression of enjoyment than this hideous punishment that tries to pass itself off as ‘fun?’ Discuss.
