Page 11 - fdo_5dec15

A Special Week of Irish Set Dancing Photos: Maxine Louie.

by Maxine Louie

While we in Ontario may complain of the heat at times, let me tell you
that in northwest Ireland, in the little town of Tubbercurry, from July
12th to 18th this year, the average high was mid-teens, and the evening
temperatures were around 10 degrees Celsius. We wore layers with
fleece, leggings, all day, and slept with two heavy wool blankets every
night. And why? Because six dancers from the Toronto Monday Irish
set dance group and two musicians went to the South Sligo Summer
School of Traditional Music, Song and Dance.
Many nationalities attend the South Sligo Summer School. In addition
to Canada, dancers come from Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, France,
U.S.A., U.K. as well as locals. This week was only one out of three well-
known weeks for dancing. While I only attended this one, others went
to Miltown Malbey for the Willie Clancy week in the first week of July,
and others went on to dance in Drumshambo, the Joe Mooney summer
school in the third week. One can truly lose weight dancing all three
weeks in a row.
We started the week with a ceili on Sunday night, and danced every night
with two dances on Saturday, so in total, you could dance eight ceilis
in seven days. There was a different live band every night, including
Folk Dancer Online — 11 R e t u r n t o Table of Con tents www.ofda.ca