Move over Michael Flatley

Every Tuesday night, at Monroe’s Pub on Lower Dominic St, the dance floor is open and a handful of set dancers come out to show there stuff. The music is upbeat and the place is packed with the dancers on center stage. Now to an American it looks like a combination of country line dancing and square dancing and indeed it is. After talking to a native I found that both American dances have origins in set dancing tradition.

The dance itself has about 4-5 varieties depending on the song played. Most of the time there were two groups of 8 people doing variations of spins, circle dances and partner switching. The whole scene is lively and you can tell that the dancers are getting a work out. We didn’t try to dance ourselves, even though Christina, was dying to be part of the craic. We merely watched, but we might look into trying to learn if we can find a class or someone to teach us a little. Our housemate, Collim, has an 8 year old daughter who does Irish dancing, Christina may see if she could get free lessons.

During the course of the evening we met one of the girls who had been dancing. Orla and her Fiance Joe were fun people who were more than happy to chat it up about dancing, life in Galway and the like. All in all the evening was “grand”!Good drink, good dancing, and most of all good craic. We’re definitely going to check that out more often