Salome dances for Herod (12th century)
Batar tra da ingin oc Erudiátas, oc mnai Hiruath; Saluisa & Neptis anmunda na n-ingen-sin; batar din hil-cherda inganta leo-side .i. ingen dib oc ambrán & oc luindiucc & oc oc fethcusib & ciúil examail ar-chena .i. Neptis a hainm-side. In ingen aile imorro .i. Saluísa, fri clesaigecht & lemenda & fri hopairecht. Tic Hiruath is-in tech rig iat do erail eladan forru & do airfited na slog, dáig co nderntais oibnes menman & oirecc tuli for rigaib & toisechaib mac n-Israel & tíre Iúda uli. Atbertsat na mná, n dingnetis a n-oirfited, cén co tarta a mbreth fén doib. “Ro-t bia,” ol in rig. Naiscet a coma fair, I fhiadnaise na slóg. Ro-gellta friu in ní-sin. Iar-sin do-ronsat na hingena éladna inganta co ségdu saethrach; & molsat na rig & na tósig cu more iat.‘Now, Herodias, wife of Herod, had two daughters, named Salvisa and Neptis. Many wondrous arts they knew, - one in singing and music, in pipes and instruments of all kinds, viz., Neptis; the other, Salvisa, in juggling and feats of leaping and active exertion. Herod brought them to the royal house, and bade them exhibit their skill to amuse the multitudes, that they should produce joy of heart and gratification of wish in the kings and chiefs of the children of Israel and all the land of Judaea. But the women said that they would not exhibit their sport till their demand was complied with. “It shall be so,” said the king. So they bound upon him, in the presence of all, the granting of their boon. Then they exhibited wondrous arts with labour and skill; and the princes and chiefs praised them mightily.’
Robert Atkinson (ed.), The passions and homilies from Leabhar Breac (Dublin, 1887), pp 66, 306-7.
Dublin, 1156
Anno m.c.xl.iiii. cepit
regnare Godredus & xxx tribus annis regnauit. ... Tertio anno regni sui
miserunt propter illum dublinienses ut regnaret super se. Qui collecta nauium
multitudine & copioso exercitu dubliniam uenit & gratanter a ciuibus
cum magno tripudio susceptus est. Paucis uero diebus interiectis communi
consilio & consensu eum in regem sullimauerint.
‘In the year 1144 (1154) Godred began ruling and reigned thirty-three years. … In the third year of his reign the people of Dublin sent for him to rule over them. Assembling a large fleet and a substantial army he came to Dublin and was received graciously by its citizens with much dancing. A few days after they elevated him into the kingship by common decision and agreement.’
Chronica Regum Mannie & Insularum - Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles (BL Cotton Julius Avii), transcribed and translated with an introduction by George Broderick (Belfast, 1979), f.37r.
1417
Piarrus mac Semais meic Emainn Butiler
.i. adbur Iarla Urmuman do marbad adaig Initi a tig Donnchadha Oirig Meic
Gilla Patraic ind Osraige la gabhaind Dondchada & siat oc denam damsa,
& sepultus est his manestir Chuli iarom.
‘Piers son of John son of Edmund Butler, who would have been Earl of Ormond, was killed on the night of Shrove Tuesday, in the house of Donnchad Oirech Mac Gilla Patraic in Ossory, by Donnchad’s blacksmith while they were dancing. He was afterwards buried in the monastery of Cuil.’
A. Martin Freeman (ed.), The Annals of Connacht (Dublin, 1944), pp 434, 435.
A mortal sin, c. 1500
Cidh na dena damsa
frit cosaibh? ‘Why did you not dance with your feet?’ Cidh dobeir ort
gan damsa do denum la do chosaibh? ‘What prevented you dancing with your
feet?’
V.H. Friedel and Kuno Meyer (eds.), La vision de Tondale (Tnudgal) (Paris, 1907), pp 95, 122.
Dublin, 1519
“Memorandum, that I, Thomas
Netterville, the king’s attorney, was with Sir William D’Arcy of Platten,
knight, at Platten, the Monday next before the feast of the Nativity of our
Lord Jesus Christ, in the year 1519, … and … enquired of him whether he knew
John Bermingham of Baldungan, … Sir William shewed me that he and his cousin
Sir Thomas Kent, being learning their Tenures and Natura Brevium with Mr. John
Stret at Dublin, was tabled at Hugh Talbot’s, … and that Philip Bermingham,
then Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, … having one John Harper in his
service, unto which John Harper, the said Sir William and Sir Thomas, with
other their companions on holydays resorted, to learn to harp and to dance at
the said justice’s place, where was then the said John Bermingham; … .”
John Dalton, The history of the County of Dublin (Dublin, 1838), p. 569.
Rince 1578
Hitherto the earliest known example
of rince ‘dance’ was that in a poem composed c. 1588 in praise
of Thomas Butler (1532-1613), 10th earl of Ormond, Taghaim Tómás (James
Carney (ed.) Poems on the Butlers of Ormond, Cahir and Dunboyne (AD
1400-1650) (Dublin, 1945), p. 79). Another example of the word from the
same general period is in Eoghan Ó Dubhthaigh’s poem An Chliar
Ghliogair, composed shortly after October 1578. Ó Dubhthaigh attacked
(among others) the notorious Miler Magrath, a former Franciscan who became
Protestant archbishop of Cashel. The poet repeatedly stresses what he sees as
the inappropriateness of the archbishop’s Irish forename, Maolmhuire,
‘servant of Mary’:
ná labhair ré Muire go garg;
feoil Chorghois is bean ag bord
olc an t-ord ag easbog ard.
Ringce, imirt agus ól,
is bean óg dá fásgadh ribh
bruidhean, meisge,
fíon Spáinneach –
ní instrument crábhaidh sin.
Maol without Mary, be not coarse;
speak not ribaldly about Mary.
Meat in Lent and cohabitation with a woman
are an unbecoming
observance in an archbishop.
Dancing, playing, and drink
and your embracing a young woman;
riot,
drunkeness, and Spanish wine –
that is no aid to piety.
1600-3
The Irish ‘delight much in dansing,
vsing no Arte of slow measures or lofty galliards, … but only Country danses,
whereof they haue some pleasant to beholde, as … Balrudry, … and the whipp of
Dunboyne and the daunse a bout a fyer (Comonly in the midst of a roome)
holding withes in their hands, and by certayne straynes drawing one another
into the fyer and also the Matachine daunse with naked swordes, … which they
make to meete in diuers comely postures, and this I haue seene them often
daunse before the lord Deputy in the houses of [diuers] Irish lordes, and it
seemed to me a dangerous sport, to see so many naked swordes so neere the Lord
Deputy and the cheefe Commanders of the Army in the handes of the Irish kerne,
who had either lately beene or were not vnlike to proue Rebells.’
Graham Kew (ed.). The Irish sections of Fynes Moryson’s unpublished ITINERARY (Dublin, 1998), p. 112.
Though these comments have been frequently quoted since they were first
published at the beginning of the twentieth century, Graham Kew gives the
original spelling and punctuation of the manuscript. ‘Balrudry’, named after
Balrothery in north co. Dublin, is found as ‘Bal[r]ootherie’ in a play of
c.1595 (Alan J. Bliss, Spoken English in Ireland 1600–1740 (Dublin,
1979), p. 18). It was also one of the dances mentioned in The Irish
Hudibras, or Fingallian Prince, … (London, 1689), ‘Danc Balruddery’ (p.
28).
The ‘Whip of Dunboyne’ was to have a long life. It is mentioned in
Ben Jonson’s Irish Masque at Court, first performed during Christmas 1612 at
Whitehall as part of the wedding celebrations of Robert Carr, earl of
Somerset, and Katherine Howard, daughter of the earl of Norfolk. The opening
scene has ‘Patrick’, ‘Dennish’ and ‘Dermock’, Irish footmen with atrocious
brogues, describe how their masters, on their way to ‘dansh a fading at te
vedding’, have lost all their fine clothes at sea. Consequently, ‘Dermock’
explains, they will be compelled to dance in their shaggy Irish mantles: ‘But
tey musht e’n come ant dansh i teir mantles and show tee how tey can foot the
fading and te fadow and te Phip-a-Dunboyne, I trow.’ Later ‘the footmen
had a dance, being six men and six boys, to the bagpipe and other rude music,
after which they had a song, ...’. Their masters, ‘gentlemen of Ireland’,
subsequently ‘dance forth a dance to a solemn music of harps’. (Stephen Orgel
(ed.), Ben Jonson: the complete masques (New Haven, 1969), pp 209–10).
Towards the end of Act III in Henry Burnell’s Landgartha, a play
first performed at Werburgh Street Theatre, Dublin, on 17 March 1640, the hero
and heroine, Hubba and Marsisa, ‘Dance the Whip of Donboyne merrily.’ (William
Smith Clark, The early Irish stage: the beginning to 1720 (Oxford
1955), p. 39.)
The dance is also referred to in The Irish Hudibras;
… (1689), pp 27, 35, 101, and made its final appearance in the first
decade of the eighteenth century on the London stage. It was then a speciality
of a professional dancer named Claxton who is not known to have been Irish.
Usually he danced solo but at least one occasion he was joined by a pupil of
his, ‘the Devonshire Girl’. The ‘Whip of Dunboyne’ would appear to have become
a character-dance: it was called ‘An Irish Humour’ when Claxton performed it
on 8 December 1702. He repeated the performance three times during the 1703
theatrical season, and once each in the seasons of 1704 and 1706, and for the
last time on 19 November 1707: ‘Several Grotesque Dances, particularly The
Whip of Dunboyn by Claxton Sr.’. (William Van Lemep et al., (eds.),
The London Stage 1660-1800 (5 vols., Carbondale, Ill., 1965-8), II, pp
29, 32, 35, 38, 78, 114, 158.)
Of the other dances that impressed Moryson, ‘the Matachine daunse’ was obviously a version of the military sword-dance which is found throughout Europe from medieval times. The other, ‘the daunse about a fyer … holding withes in their hands’ may also have survived for a further century or more. The sword dance, Rince an Chlaidhimh and ‘The Dance of the Withes’, Rince an Ghadaraigh, are referred to in poems composed in 1669 and 1688 (Breandán Breathnach, Dancing in Ireland (Miltown Malbay, 1983), pp 16-17). Gadarach ‘withes, oziers’ is a collective noun from gad, and since the custom in Ireland was to use a withe to hang a person, he was said to have performed rince an ghaid ‘the dance of the withe’. The Munster poet Dáibhidh Ó Bruadair also mentions Rince an Ghadaraigh – though he does not explicitly state that it was performed around a fire – in Caithréim Thaidhg ‘The Triumph of Tadhg’, composed in 1690 in response to another celebrating the recruitment of men from a Gaelic Irish background into the royal army in Ireland:
Sórdán nach sólás le geamaraibh
Fianuigheacht ar fhialríoghraibh Banbha
Píp trí mbeann is damhsa an ghadaraigh.
In the guardhouse now often, though rarely in former times,
A humming
is heard that to gammers no solace brings,
Fenian romances about Banbha’s
noble kings,
The dance of the withe and the strains of the three-droned
pipe.
J.C. MacErlean (ed.), Duanaire Dháibhidh Uí Bhruadair (3 vols., London 1910-16), III, pp 111, 131.
In the eighteenth century the co. Tipperary poet Liam Dall Ó Hifearnáin also referred to Rince an Ghadaraigh in a poem celebrating Jean Francois Thurot’s raid on Carrickfergus, co. Antrim, in May 1760:
is cuirfear ár namhaid i dteannta a marfa,
is aite liom súd ná ‘Damhsa an Ghadraigh’,
is má chuirtear a chodladh iad, ní dubhach liom é.
[Mass will be chanted in all of our towns, And our enemies will be placed in danger of death; I find that more pleasant than ‘The Dance of the Withes’, And if they are put to sleep I shall not be depressed.]
Breandán Ó Buachalla, Aisling ghéar (Baile Átha Cliath, 1996), p. 443.
‘Fading’
Besides the ‘Whip of Dunboyne’,
Jonson’s Irish footmen also mention the ‘fading’ and the ‘fadow’, the latter
almost certainly an echo of the former term, perhaps the Irish word fadó
‘long ago’. There are dozens of references to ‘Fading’ in English dramatic
works from 1611 onward. The word became part of a nonsense chorus, and a tune
called ‘With a fading’ – later ‘With a Pudding’ and ‘With an Orange’ – was
immensely popular throughout the seventeenth century, to judge by the number
of ballads written to it.
(Claude M. Simpson, The British broadside ballad and its music (New Brunswick, 1965), pp 792-5).
Jonson alone implies that ‘Fading’ was an Irish dance; and in the context of his masque he could hardly have alluded to a dance which the audience would recognise as having no Irish associations. Since the eighteenth century ‘Fading’ was repeatedly said to derive from the Irish rince fada ‘long dance’, but is is unlikely. How the ‘-a’ of fada became ‘-ing’ in English would be hard to explain; it would also be unusual for an adjective to survive and the noun it qualified to disappear. The music of ‘With a fading’ also makes clear that ‘Fading’ – which would have rhymed with ‘plodding’ rather than ‘shading’ – was stressed on the second syllable. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, while unable to explain the word, tentatively suggest that it might derive from the Irish feadán, which has among its meanings ‘whistle, flute, chanter of a bagpipe’, etc. This derivation is possible, since dances such as the hornpipe and musette (as well as several others) take their names from musical instruments. But there is no means of proving the derivation – though in some other Irish words borrowed into seventeenth-century English final -án did become ‘-ing’: Inis Ceithleáin, Enniskillen, co. Fermanagh, is ‘Inniskilling’ in seventeenth-century documents, and the famous regiment the town raised to fight in the Williamite War, 1689-91, was referred to as the Inniskilling Regiment, or the Inniskillingers.
The ‘Irish Hey’, 1613-89
‘The Daunce was an
infernall Irish-Hay full of mad and wilde changes …’.
Thomas Dekker, A Strange Horse Race (London, 1613), f. iv. r, quoted in Cyrus Hoy, Introductions, notes and commentaries to THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS DEKKER, ed. by Fredson Bowers (4 vols., Cambridge 1980), IV, p. 155.
‘Crees sa mee if I heare de pipes goe I cannot forbeare to daunce an Irish hay…’.
Thomas Dekker, The Welch Embassador (London, 1624), in Fredson Bowers (ed.), The dramatic works of Thomas Dekker (4 vols., Cambridge, 1953-61) IV, p. 361.)
‘… scourge him, as boys do tops; or make him dance The Irish Hey, over a Field of Thistles, …’.
Sir William Davenant, The Siege (London, c. 1630), in The works of Sir William Davenant, … (London, 1673), p. 80.)
The ‘Irish Hay’ also features in The Irish Hudibras,…, pp 35, 101, 159. The music for this dance is mentioned in a late seventeenth-century English song, ‘The West Country Jigg; or, a Trenchmore Galliard:’
And merrily he did play,
The Shakeing of Sheetes
And eke the Irish Hay.
William Chappell and Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth (eds.), The Roxburghe Ballads (9 vols., London, 1875-99), VII, p. 344.
‘Take your Partner’, c. 1621
‘… of all
creatures I cannot abide a splay-footed woman; … her heels keep together so,
as if she were beginning an Irish dance still, and the wriggling of her bum
playing the tune to’t.’
Thomas Middleton, Women beware women (London, c. 1621), act III, scene 3. David L. Frost (ed.), The selected plays of Thomas Middleton (Cambridge, 1978), p. 270.
Also in this play (act III, scene 2) Middleton has a character assign appropriate dances to various classes of people in a punning manner (pp 259-60):
The cinquepace the gay;
cuckholds dance the hornpipe;
and farmers dance the hay;
your soldiers dance the round
and maidens that grow big;
your drunkards, the canaries,
your whore and bawd the jig.
‘Margery Cree’, 1651
‘Madge on a Tree or
Margery Cree’, also spelt ‘Mage on a Cree’, is a dance in John Playford’s
famous 1651 work, The English Dancing Master
(Jeremy Barlow (ed.), The complete country dance tunes from Playford’s dancing master (1651–ca.1728), (London, 1985), pp 28, 134).
In The Irish Hudibras (1689) a dance called ‘Mageen’ is glossed ‘Margery’ and again ‘Margery Cree’ (pp 27, 103, 159). No immediate explanation of either title comes to mind, and the Fingal reference may just have meant that the dance was known in north co. Dublin. However, the varying form of the title in the Dancing Master could be a hint that the dance was of non-English origin, possibly Irish.
Dunboyne, co. Meath, 1654
‘ ... at the the
North end of the town by the highway stands a high Ash Tree seen over all or
most parts of the Barony about which the Country People used to Dance around
on Festivall Days.’
Charles MacNeill, ‘Copies of the Down Survey Maps in Private Keeping’, Analecta Hibernica viii (1933), 424.)
1673
‘The Irish Gentry are musically
disposed, & therefore many of them play singular well upon the Irish
Harp: … The Common sort … are much given to Dancing after their Country
way, and the men play upon the Jews-Harp.’
(The present state of Ireland, … (London, 1673), p. 153.)
1681
By day:
They are at this day
much addicted (on holidays, after the bagpipe, Irish harpe, or Jew's harpe) to
dance their countrey fashion (that is) the long dance one after another of all
conditions, master, mrs, servants & c.
By night:
At these meetings (wakes) the young frye, viz. Darby,
Teigue, Morogh, Leeam, Rinett, Allsoon, Norah, Shevaune, More, Kathleene,
Ishabeal, Nooulla, Mayrgett, Timesheen, Shinnyed, & c., appeare as gay as
may be, with their holyday apparell, and with piper, harper or fidler, revell
and dance the night throughout, make love and matches.
Observations in A Voyage through the Kingdom of Ireland by Thomas Dineley, Gent. in the year 1681. … (Dublin, 1870) [from Ceol, Vol. 1, no. 3, p27]
Long Dance, New Ross, co. Wexford, March
1687
‘Ross, 10 (?) March 1687’ ‘In the first place I had the
honor to heare the sound of Drums, ye harmonious voice of violins, the voyce
of virgins & the musicall strain of pipes, … (p. 137).
‘On their approach towards the Corporation they were met and saluted by above sixty young women, well dressed, and dancing with their pipers before them, saying in Irish ‘De Vahe Waister Meare agus vat boune qu roe Rey Shames’; then approached a number of angelicall young virgins carrying in their hands laurells gilt with gold, consisting of above sixty in number, the best mens children of the corporacon very richly clad and decently ordered, … dancing a part with themselves with a garland valued twenty guineas and music playing for them, …’ (p. 134).
P.D. Vigours, ‘An account of the reception of a new charter from King James II to the town of New Ross, county Wexford, in March 1687’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland xix (1889), 134-6.
‘Damhsa / Rince Muimhneach’ 1689
‘Dance a
Myeen’ is the odd title of one of the dances/tunes listed in The Irish
Hudibras;… (1689), p. 27. This could have been a corruption of Damhsa
Muimhneach, ‘Munster Dance’, the name of a dance known in Dublin city some
decades later. The poet Seán Ó Neachtain (?1650-1728), who had lived in Dublin
since the 1680s or 90s, mentions the performance of Damhsa Muimhneach
in ‘Magaí Lauder’, a patriotic drinking song he composed in the early 1720s.
(Pádraig Ó Canainn (eag.), Filíocht na nGael (Baile Átha Cliath, 1958), p. 32.) .
In an English poem, ‘A Dissertation on Irish and Italian Musick’, Laurence Whyte names ‘Rinke Mueenagh’ Rince Muimhneach as one of the dance-tunes popular in Dublin during the 1730s (Poems on various subjects (Dublin 1740), p. 158). As damhsa and rince are usually synonymous, the same dance and its tune would have been in question.
An English traveller in Ireland - 1695
John
Dunton, an English traveller writing from Ireland around 1695, refers to music
and dancing:
At Hurling Matches: the prize is generally a barrell or two of ale, which is brought into the field and drunk off by the victors on the spott, tho the vanquisht are not without a share of it too. Two or three bagg pipes attend the conquerers at the barrell's head, and then play them out of the field.(P) The Village Green: Hither all the people resort with a piper on Sundays or holydays in the afternoon, where the young folks dance till the cows come home (which by the by they'l do without anyone to drive them).
At Weddings: After the matrimonial ceremony was over we had a Bagg piper and a blind harper that dinn'd us with their musick to which there was perpetuall dancing.
At the Christening: After the ceremony of baptism was over we had four persons who fell to play on their Jews Trumps, each of which playing on two at once. The musick was no way disagreeable, but most of their aires were melancholy and doleful as suiting the humours of a people always in subjection.
At the Wake: Sometimes they followed one another in a ring (as they say faries do) in a rude dance to the musick of a bag pipe.
At the Fair: Drumconra where on the faire day a fine smock is
exposed as a prize for women to run in foot race and a bag of sneezing and a
pair of broags for the best dancer.
An English traveller in Ireland by John
Dunton, 1695. [from Ceol, Vol. 4, no. 1, p23]
Dublin 1716
‘Whereas it hath been reported,
and is thereby frequently believed, that Hogins the Barbar was shot thro‘ the
Head, by a Soldier attending the Danceing School of Mr. Kavanaugh, in
Back-Lane, the 20th Instant: These are to give Notice, that it was not at the
School of Mr. Kavanaugh, but at the School of Mr. Cantwell, in Back-lane
aforesaid, the said Hogins was kill‘d.‘
Whalley's Dublin Post-Man, Dublin, 5 January 1716 [Reference supplied by Nicholas Carolan]
That there were at least two dancing schools in Back Lane is the point.
A Dancing-master’s Agreement, Cork 1718
“An agreemt made Between William Bayly, Gent, and Charles Stanton, dancing master the 21 of October, 1718.“It is agreed that the said Charles Stanton shall teach the said William Baylies Children to the Number of four to dance untill they perfectly Understand Jygs, Minutes, Hornpipe and Country dances, and such dances to dance very well, as one of understanding in that respect shall Adjudge.
“In Consideration whereof the said Bayly shall pay unto the said Charles Stanton the sum of two Gynnies, or six and twenty shillings, when taught perfectly as aforesaid and Not before. In witnesse whereof the parties above Named have Interchangeably set theire hands and seales the day and the yeare above written.
“Memorand that it is further agreed that since the youngest may not perform to be ready as soon as “CHARLES STANTON.” [SEAL] the rest that then mr Bayly will consider that part, the said Stanton doing his best endeavor to forward the said Child. “Being prsent On the back is - “DARBY DONOVANE, “Mr Stantons agreemt for “WILL HEAS.” teaching to to dance.”
Pole Cosby, at school in Athy, co. Kildare, 1718.
Pole Cosby (d. 1747) of Stradbally Hall, The Queen’s County
(now co. Laois). At school in Athy, co. Kildare, 1718: ‘I learned to dance one
quarter of one Mr. Michael Commons, afterwards he married at Ballymannus, and
another quarter of one Mr. Gold …’ (p. 90).
14 April 1724, returning to Stradbally with his father after a stay on the Continent: ‘At Blackford the bounds of the county we were met by several gentleman, friends, tenants and Garlands and long dancers and my Father invited them all home to dine with him, and gave drink and money to the common people and dancers. The next day the 15th April 1724 was my Birthday and the day of my being 21 years old, so there was dannceing and long dancing and great joy among the tenants …’ (p. 168).
Bringing his bride home for the first time: ‘Ye 1st May 1728, I brought her to Stradbally, we were met at ye bounds of ye county by a great many gentlemen and others and Long dancers …’ (p. 176).
April 1740: ‘The Lord Chancellor Windham of Ireland dismissed George Hartpole of Sherule Esq. his Bill against Hunt Walsh of Ballykillcavan Esq. on ye 27th July 1738 and Mr. Walsh sent his people to my town of Stradbally to buy drink, and drink about a bonefire which they made in ye town but Cos Francis Cosby kicked and put it out, and would not suffer a Bonefire in the town at all, … ye 17th March 1739 the House of Lords affirmed wt ye Lord Chancellor had done the 27th of July 1738 between Hartpole and Walsh and ye news of it came to Mr. Walsh to Ballykillcavan Friday ye 25 April 1740 at 10 o’clock of ye night, and the next day Saturday Mr Walshes servant and people came to Stradbally with Garland, piper and Long Dance, and the townsfolks, particularly Stephen Roberts, and Abel Roberts met ‘em on ye Bridge, bid ‘em go rejoyce on Walshes estate, and not come into Stradbally, and bid ‘em go back wh. they refused, but were rushing on, on wh the townsfolks brook ye Bagpipes and ye Garland all to pieces, Beat all the Ballykillcavan folks very Heartly, and made ‘em return very shamefully, …’ (pp 435-6).
Walter Fitzgerald (ed.), ‘The autobiography of Pole Cosby, of Stradbally, Queen’s County, 1707-1737’, Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society v (1906-8), 79-99, 165-84, 253-73, 311-24, 423-36.
Swanlibar, co. Cavan, 1730s.
In the 1730s
‘the spaw well of Swadling Bar’ drew such large crowds during the summer
season that no lodgings were to be found in the vicinity save ‘beds of rushes
in Irish hutts’. As for entertainment: ‘Neither have they any Hall or house
(near the Well) to dance in, but this they do in the Green Field … . Here you
may find the fine Beau and the Country girl with her hair platted behind, The
Nice Lady and the Plowman lilting most movingly together in a Country Dance by
5 O’Clock in a morning, while the Bagpipes play the black Joke or
Westmeath-Election.’
‘A Natural History of the Parish of Killasher by the Rev. Mr. Wm. Henry, Rector (1738-9)’, BL Add. MS 4, 435, f. 20.
‘The Black Joke’ is now ‘The Humours of Bandon’. The ‘Westmeath Election’ recalled a bitterly-fought by-election of 1723. Two songs on this contest have survived in manuscript; one, a satire, was written to a pre-existing ‘Irish tune’, a jig, and this may have been the tune Henry heard.
‘As clever dancers as ever eys beheld’: Dublin and Mayo,
1731-3
Dublin, 9 December 1731. ‘After Xmas I go to Platten,
Mr. Graham’s countrey-house, 20 miles from Dublin. We are to spend a fortnight
there; they desugn asking as much company to go down with them as will make 6
couple for country dances, and we are to dance every night.’ Vol. I, p. 329.
Dublin, 30 March 1732.
‘On Monday Phill and I went to the
ridotto with Mrs. Wesley, … after some hideous minuets, we went to the country
dances. Mr. Wesley was my partner, there were twenty couple, four dances were
as much as my spirits would bear. … Yesterday we had an entertainment of
another sort, and very agreeable in its way, - an assembly at Mrs. Butler’s …
. While we were eating, fiddles were were sent for, (a sudden thought). We
began dancing before eleven and held briskly to it till half an hour after
two. Phill was not idle: she danced with her cousin Will (Usher), and I with
Mr. Butler. We were eight couple of as clever dancers as ever eye beheld,
though I say it that should not.’ (I, pp 345-6)
Killala, co. Mayo, 7 August 1732
‘To-morrow, madam, we are to
have dainty doings; ‘tis Killala fairday. There are to be the following games,
viz., two horse races, one to be won by the foremost horse, another by the
last horse. A prize for the best dancer, another for the best singer, a third
for the neatest drest girl in the company. Tobacco to be grinned for by old
men, a race by men in sacks, and a prize for the best singing boy. … Our
fiddler has left us, so there’s an end of dancing for some time, but we expect
a famous piper and hautboy, and then we shall foot it again most furiously.’
(I, pp 369-70)
Killala, 13 August 1732.
‘We had excellent sport at the fair,
… in the afternoon chairs were placed before the house, where we all took our
places in great state, … ; then dancing, singing, grinning, accompanied by an
excellent bagpipe, the whole concluded with a ball, bonfire, and
illuminations; pray does your bishop promote such entertainment in Gloster as
our does in Killala?’ (I., p. 373).
Killala, 27 August 1732.
‘Last Friday we were diverted in
another way. It was Mr. Lloyd’s birthday, his father was bishop of this place,
… . After dinner a fiddler appeared, to dancing we went ding dong, notice was
given that a set of maskers desired admittance, …’. (I, p. 378)
Dublin, 4 January 1733.
‘The last time I writ to you was from
Platten on this day sen’night. I told you we were to have a ball, and a ball
we had, nine couple of as clever dancers (though I said it that should not) as
ever tripped. The knight and I were partners, we began at seven, danced
thirty-six dances with only resting once, supped at twelve, every one by their
partners, … . Two or three of the young ladies sung, I was asked for my song,
and gave them “Hopd She;” that occasioned some mirth. After we went to dancing
again; most of the ladies determined not to leave Plattin till day-break, they
having three miles to go home, so we danced on till we were not able to dance
any longer. Sir Thomas Prendergast is an excellent dancer … - dances with
great spirit, and in very good time.’ (I, pp 390-1)
Dangan, 5 April 1733.
‘Yesterday we walked four miles before
dinner, and danced two hours in the evening, we have very good music for that
purpose; …’. (I, p. 405)
Lady Llanover (ed.), The autobiography and correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delaney (3 vols., London, 1861).
Dublin 1733
At Madam Violante’s Booth in
George’s-Lane, on Wednesday next, being the 6th of June, 1733, for the benefit
of Mr. Walsh and Mr. Cummins, Dancing-Masters, will be performed a Grotesque
Opera, call’d Harlequin Triumphant... with Variety of Dancing and Musick,
particularly several Concerto’s on the Harp, and Jack-Latin on the Pipes, by
two of the best Masters in this Kingdom.
Faulkiner’s Dublin Journal, Dublin, 29 May 1733 [Reference supplied by Nicholas Carolan]
Quadrille
In the early eighteenth century,
‘quadrille’ usually meant a card-game, and the earliest example of use of the
term to mean a dance quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from
1774. In The Dublin Evening Post, 8 April 1780, Fontaine, the
well-known Dublin dancing-master of the period, advertised his ‘New Dances
..., particularly the Cottillion Quadrilles for the Masquerade ...’. However,
a dance called ‘Quadrille’ had previously appeared in John Walsh,
Caledonian country dances, book the second (London, 1737), p. 89. If
the title means that the dance was in fact a quadrille, this would be the
earliest example of this meaning so far discovered, predating most others by
thirty-to-forty years.
Throughout the house made charming noise,
Of such effect that it did make
Most of the guests their heels to shake;
Nay, trump itself, there seldom fails
To make old women bob their tails.
To dancing they are so inclin’d,
That even the very lame or blind,
If trump or bagpipe they do hear,
In dancing posture do appear.
As strange their steps, their shape, their mein,
As e’re in beggars bush was seen;
Baldoyle, or Yellow Stockings play’d,
Gives nimble feet to every maid, … (p. 16)
The longest dancer dances best (p. 17)
The history of Ireland in verse, or, a description of the Western Isle. Being the customs and manners of the ancient Irish. … by J.K. (Dublin, c. 1750).
‘Yellow Stockings’ belongs to a cycle of pipe-tunes in 9/4 and 9/8 found all over Ireland, England and Scotland from the seventeenth century onward, and has left several descendants in Irish tradition. ‘Baldoyle’ is probably to be identified with the ‘frisk of Baldoil’ mentioned in The Irish Hudibras; … 1689, p. 103.
Dublin 1755–62
‘… MS. 5991 in the National
Library … is a ledger containing the farm accounts for a period in the
nineteenth century of the Reynell family of Killynon, … about seven miles from
Mullingar [co. Westmeath]. Written into the ledger and obviously copied from
an older document, are what is called “Miss Nugent’s Accounts”. These accounts
detail the expenditure incurred by a young girl named Nugent while staying in
lodgings in Dublin during the period February, 1755 to November, 1762. …
Elizabeth’s education was not neglected, not least in the social graces. She
was straight away put in the hands of the writing master, Ferrall, at a fee of
11s.-4½d. per quarter … . This payment is repeated quarterly up to the end of
the period of the accounts, increasing to 18s.-9d. in January 1759. … In May
1755 the dancing master, McNeal, makes his appearance. At a fee of a half a
guinea a month, a dancing master was obviously far more expensive than a
writing master at half a guinea a quarter. McNeal continues to appear
regularly until 1762; after a period of seven year’s tuition Elizabeth must
have been an accomplished dancer.’
Patrick Fagan, The second city: a portrait of Dublin 1700-1760 (Dublin, 1986) pp 234, 236-7.
Seán Buí, 1759
After the Second Act
there will be a Dance to the Tune of Shan-Bue, danced in a very surprising
Manner by a Scholar of Signor Maranesi’s.’
The Universal Advertiser, 13-17 February, 1759: ‘Theatre Royal, Monday 5 March, … .
A Wexford Wedding, 1764
‘They first find a
large waste cabin, malthouse or barn where they place tables, benches, etc.,
with wadds of straw in several different parts of it. After the couple are
joined by the priest’s hand and a ring is exchanged, and every person present
has heartily smacked the bride, they make a collection for the priest, the
piper, and last for the itinerant beggars who have all assembled to make merry
with the happy pair on the joyful occasion. The ceremony over, they seat
themselves to dinner, … . After dinner, the bride is handed from the table by
the head bridesman, who has the favour of dancing with her; then there is an
apple thrown up, and whoever recovers it is favoured with dancing second. …’.
(Amyas Griffith, ‘An account of the barony of Forth’, Dublin Magazine 1765, p. 505.)
Co Kerry, 1773.
Joseph Taylor to Lord
Shelburne, 5 July 1773: ‘It is really shocking …to see how these wretches
spend their time – parents sauntering about the roads doing nothing and their
sons and daughters going to a dancing school at three shillings a quarter, …’.
The Marquis of Lansdowne, Glanerought and the Petty-Fitzmaurices (Oxford, 1937), p. 75.
Co. Kerry, 20 July 1788
‘About 2 miles short
of Tralee, and close by the roadside, we saw a large party of people dancing
on the grass. When we came by them they were going down with a Country Dance.
They had no other music than their own singing. This is the first dancing of a
Sunday that I have ever seen in any part of his Majesty’s Dominions.’
Gerard J. Lyne, ‘Journal of a visit to Kerry in July 1788’, Journal of the Kerry Historical and Archaeological Society xxi (1988), 136.
Danse Macabre, 1800
Thomas ‘Buck’ Whaley
(1766-1800), renowned in late eighteenth-century Dublin for his famous trip to
Jerusalem - which won him £15000 and the nickname ‘Jerusalem’ – died in
mysterious circumstances on 2 November 1800 at The George Inn, Knutsford,
Cheshire, while on his way from Liverpool to London: ‘A strange circumstance
... took place just before his funeral. The body had been placed in a leaden
coffin and brought into the old assembly rooms, and the workmen had just made
up the coffin, when Mr. Robinson, an Irish man, who was also a dancing-master
of that day, stepping upon the coffin, danced a hornpipe over the body.’
Edward Sullivan (ed,), Buck Whaley’s memoirs, including his trip to Jerusalem … (London 1906), p. xxviii.
Munster, 1807
‘The Irish formerly
celebrated their Saints days with dancing, but not like the inhabitants of
Limoges, in their places of worship, but at wells, nominally dedicated
to them. They began their ceremonies with certain acts of penance, and
purification, and the day concluded with the utmost festivity, but previous to
the year 1798, they were dispersed, and sometimes cut down amidst their solemn
rites. Sinc that period they have not ventured to assemble even on St. John’s
eve, to dance round the blazing pile, or to meet a beloved ‘Squire brining
home his Bride, or returning after a long absence to his country seat, when it
was usual with them to trip the long dance before him for many miles with
incredible swiftness; from their vivacity and agility the Irish were
conspicuous in these exhibitions, and tho’ the steps in dancing are reduced to
five nominal one, viz. the direct, the open, the circular, the twisted or pas
tortile, or the cutstep, yet the with their bendings, risings, cabrioles,
fallings, slidings, the foot in the air, the tip-toe, the rest on the heel,
quarter turns, half turns, three quarter turns, and whole turns, the peasantry
displayed an innumerable variety of motions, both with their feet, legs and
arms in these simple dances.’
The Panorama; or, a journey to Munster, … (Dublin, 1807), p. 60.
Other references of interest in this work: Jack Lattin (person), pp viii-ix, dance pp 42-4; ‘Roly Poly’, or ‘Sir Roger de Coverly’, pp 42-4; … ‘jig, hornpipe and Irish reel’, p. viii.
St Patrick’s Day, Dublin Castle, early
1800s
‘This is the only occasion on which country dances are
performed at the Irish court. The ball on Patrick’s night is always opened by
the lively dance of “Patrick’s day.” The dowagers of both sexes then come into
play; and “the Irish trot” of many a veteran belle, recalls the good
old times of the Rutland Court: when French quadrilles were “undreamed of in
philosophy” of the dancing of that noted epoch.’
Lady Morgan, The Book of the Boudoir (2 vols., London, 1829), II, p. 231.
Callan, co. Kilkenny, 1835
Ascension Thursday,
25 May 1835: Iomáint agus comhrac coilighe [coileach] agus rinnce fada nó
Geataí Arda; agus iomáint geata air Fhaithche an Aonaigh.
‘Hurling and cock-fighting and a country dance or “High Gates” …, and a “cricket” match on Fair Green.’
Michael McGrath, (ed.), Cinnlae Amhlaoibh Uí Shúileabháin – The diary of Humphrey O’Sullivan (4 vols., London 1936-7), IV, pp 90, 91.
‘High Gates’ is still the term for a particular movement in certain sets.
Queen Victoria on the Irish jig, 1849
The most
amusing incident of the day soon afterwards took place. Her Majesty and party
were conducted to the front of the lawn, close to the trench dividing it from
the park, where the people had assembled, and there witnessed what we may term
a genuine Irish jig, danced to the music of an Irish piper, by several of the
Duke’s tenants and their wives and daughters. The dancing was kept up with
great spirit “for upwards of half an hour,” to use the words of Burns, the
Royal presence having “put life and mettle into their heels.” Her Majesty
laughed most heartily at the performances, particularly at the antics of one
couple, who, after concluding some most diversified evolutions, concluded by
advancing in front of their companions, and making a very low bow, which the
Sovereign acknowledged by a most pleasing smile. All the dancers, we learned,
were disciples of Father Mathew - as, indeed, their neat and comfortable
appearance would indicate.
Illustrated London News 18 August 1849, p. 125. [Picture and reference courtesy of Irish Traditional Music Archive]
Friday, 10 August 1849: ‘At a quarter to twelve o’clock we set out, with all our suite for, Carton, the Duke of Leinster’s; … After luncheon we walked out and saw some of the country people dancing jigs, which was very amusing. The Irish jig is quite different to the Scotch reel; not so animated, and the steps different, but very droll. The people were very poorly dressed in thick coats, and the women in shawls. There was one man who was a regular specimen of an Irishman, with his hat over one ear. Others in blue coats, with short breeches and blue stockings. There were three old and tattered pipers playing. The Irish pipe is very different from the Scotch; it is very weak, and they don’t blow into it, but merely have a small bellows which they move with the arm.’
Leaves from the journal of our life in the Highlands from 1848 to 1861. …. Edited by Arthur Helps (London, 1868), p. 184.
Malahide road, Dublin, 1850s
Light of heart,
light of heel, are strong national characteristics, often starting out and
unexpectedly showing themselves. There appears to be a strong affinity and
sympathy between the bow of a fiddle and Paddy’s feet, for no sooner does the
one sound than the other trembles for partnership. Shortly after my arrival at
Dublin, walking out on the Malahide road one balmy early summer Sunday
evening, in company with a friend, we were surprised on hearing the sound of a
fiddle merrily scraping away, and on turning a corner of the road, saw the
blind old owner and performer standing under the shade of a spreading
elm-tree, surrounded by a group of men and maids, forming a thick circle round
a pair who were jigging it well, under the influence of their own happy
spirits and the applause and critical remarks of their neighbours. Goldsmith
and his village-green stood prominently before our mind’s eye. Again, it is no
uncommon sight to see, on the return of the Baldoyle race-folk, a car full of
holiday quay-porters, with fiddler en suite, pull up at a roadside
“public,” get their glass, and then jig (a couple at at time) until sheer
exhaustion stops them.
Pickings Up in Ireland by “An Englishman”, W.H. Smith & Son, London 1859, pp 76-7. [Reference supplied by Terry Moylan]
Moycullen, co. Galway, 1870s
‘There was much
dancing at the cross-roads, then. A strange rather melancholy stately dancing,
it was, two long lines of men and women facing each other, their arms folded
their bodies swaying. That is my memory of the cross-roads dancing as I must
have seen it in some red and dark dusk of a Connemara evening. And there were
“patterns,” somewhat similar to the Pardons in Brittany, for which fair
booths were set up, with oranges and apples and sweets and gingerbread all
mixed together gaily for sale. There were dancing competitions, and I think,
as in Britanny, there was a religious association, or had been originally, and
perhaps the religious part had lapsed and the “Pattern” had become a purely
frivolous occasion, although there is little frivolity about that memory of
mine. There was an old piper who used to play for the cross-roads dancing or
at a wedding, and other such occasions. His name was Burke and he was, I
believe, a relative of ours, if an unacknowledged one. He was a beautiful old
man with a long beard and uplifted, sightless eyes. For he was blind too. He
had manners that any of us might have envied.
‘It must have been just before the church began to wage war on the cross-roads dancing and other gaieties of Irish rural life. No doubt with the best intentions. But the dullness of country life that followed hastened the departure of the young for America.’
Seventy Years Young: memories of Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall, as told to Pamela Hinkson (London, 1937), p. 30.
‘The old forms and customs, too, are becoming obliterated; the festivals are unobserved, and the rustic festivities neglected or forgotten; the bowlings, the cakes and the prinkums* (the rustic peasants’ balls and routs), do not often take place when starvation and pestilence stalk over a country, many parts of which appear as if a destroying army had but recently passed through it. …
* In Connaught, in former times, when a dance was held on a Sunday evening at a cross-roads, or any place of public resort, a large cake, like what is called a barnbrack, with a variety of apocryphical birds, fabulous fishes, and outlandish quadrupeds, such as are only known in heraldic zoology, raised in bold relief on its upper crust, was placed on the top of a churn-dash, and tied over with a clean white cloth; the staff of the churn-dash was then placed outside the door as a sign of the fun and amusement going on within. When they had danced and drank their fill, the likeliest boy took the prettiest colleen, and led her out to the cake, and placed it in her hands as Queen of the Feast; it was then divided among the guests, and the festivities continued. The word prinkum is sometimes used in the county of Galway, to express a great rout or merry-making, in which dancing, courting, coshering, whiskey-drinking, card-playing, fighting, and sometimes a little ribbonism, form the chief diversions.’ [pp 14-15]
May Eve
A this time (May Eve), also
small-plays and various rural games are resorted to, as "dance in the ring",
and "threading my grandmother's needle"; in which latter the boys and girls
join hands and dance a sort of serpentine figure up and down the roads,
sometimes for a mile in extent-the man generally carrying green boughs, or
sprigs of sloe and whitethorn, then in blossom, and the girls bedecked with
Posies, wreaths of Noneens (daisies), and garlands of May-flowers and
buttercups.
The long dance, was in times past performed with great spirit in the County Kilkenny, at the most celebrated moat of Tibberoughny, near Piltown. The assemblage-consisting of the bearers of the May bush, in dancers, musicians and spectators-entered the moat at the south-western gap, circumambulated the outer entrenchment several times, ascended the lofty mound by the north-east path, placed the emblem of summer on the summit, and commenced the revels. The May bush, or May pole, was here adorned with those golden balls provided by the beauties married in the neighbourhood at the preceding Shrovetide. A renowned fairy man, with a large key in his hand, led the van, and having apportioned his prescribed rounds, entered the moat, and then taking off his hat, called in a loud sonorous voice three times "Brian O'Shea-he-hi-ho"… The great summer bonfire was afterwards lighted in the centre of this fort or rath.
‘As the evening advances, and the assembly breaks up into small parties, lovers seeking the greenwood shade, and crones retiring to the hob, a few solitary individuals may be seen walking out in the gloaming, courting the moonlight by the ancient rath, or wandering into the lone fairy-peopled valley, or the dreary fell, in hopes of hearing the mystic pipers of the sheogues, which on that night, more than any other, are said to be on the alert, and to favour mortals with their melodies. Great is the agility and grace believed to be conferred on those who are fortunate enough to trip it to the music of the fairy pipes; so great that it has become a proverb in Connaught, upon seeing a good dancer, to say, “Troth, ma bouchel, you listened to the piper on May Eve.”’ [p. 52]
W.R. Wilde, Irish popular superstitions (Dublin, 1852; rep, 1972; rev. ed., 1975) [Re-printed in Breandán Breathnach, Dancing in Ireland, Dal gCais Publications, 1983]
Ribbon outrages in co. Roscommon, 1823-5
‘To
oppose this state of things there were only the local magistrates, … and one
of the first acts of the magistrates was to prevent or disperse all
merry-makings or amusements of the people. … the ire of the authorities was
chiefly directed against cakes … and dances. When information was
obtained with respect to the locality of one of these, thither the magistrate,
with his posse comitatus, repaired, broke into the assembly, dispersed
the merrymakers, spilled the whiskey, danced in the fiddle, and carried off to
the blackhole, or guard-room, the owners of the house.*
*We have just received the following from a distinguished member of the Connaught bar: – “Bryan Kyne was a justice of the peace for three counties. He was tried before Baron Smith, in Roscommon, at the summer assizes of 1830; and the case against him was, that he went to the cabin of an old man, who lived by fiddling for the country people as they danced, and who had a crowd of them assembled, and engaged at that amusement, on a Sunday evening, which Kyne thought he should disperse. On his entering the cabin, he seized the fiddle, and desired the dancers to disperse, which they did at once and without a murmur. He had a gun in his hand; and when, by their voices, as they moved away from the cabin, he judged that they were yet within shot, he levelled his gun in the direction they were taking towards their homes, and injured several of them. The principal witness was a very decent-looking youth, about twenty. He took off his shirt, and showed his back to the judge and jury, as he stood on the table in the public court; and although it was six months after the transaction, it exhibited a shocking appearance of scars and cicatrices. Kyne was convicted and transported for life.”’ [pp 82-3]
Old Times in Killenarden
We had good
times, too, in the old days; what with the Bride Oge, ceilidhing, singing and
dancing. The ballads put me in mind of it.-Oh, the Bride Oge? A celebration in
honour of St Bridget. Like the wren-boys for St Stephen. It was held (and
sometimes is still held) from 2 February to Shrove. Brittas is the great place
here for it.
The men dress up in long white shirts, and with wool plucked
from the briar-bushes, make for themselves beards and moustaches for their
faces, and wigs for their heads. They carry with them a little figure on a
pole-this is the Bride Oge… It is made of straw and bits of coloured cloth,
with sheep-wool hair like the men. Money is collected from door to door. When
the feast starts, they do come to the neighbour’s houses, where they say a
prayer, then they sing and dance to the music of the fiddle and the goatskin
tambourine… They have a special song, too, but I do not remember it. But there
must be many who mind it yet.
Just past the door here, where the bohereen
joins the mountain, was a great place for dancing of a summer Sunday long ago.
Kitty Shea, the blind fiddler, would be there; and her daughter would be
singing with her and keeping time on the tambourine. A man would be made
leader for the evening. He would be holding a tin plate in his hand, and in it
he would auction the music. Every man would bid for his choice to please his
partner, and he who bidded most put his money on the plate and called the
tune. -Ay, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” -What was collected went to
the fiddler. It was all jigs and hornpipes we danced. Ah, it was jolly! Jolly
it was. It was wonderful how the music and the dancing, the songs and the
laughing, brightened up the hill.
But, of course, what we would have here
was nothing to the dancing at Rathfarnham Fair. It was held on 10 June each
year. The Sunday previous to the fair was called “Walking Sunday”, … as it was
on that day that the people who lived at a distance commenced walking their
stock. Well, the fun of the fair started on Walking Sunday and went on till
the fair was over.
There were all kinds of side-shows in the streets. We
would have trick-o’-the-loop men, wrestlers, strong men, pipers,
ballad-singers, and the rest. But the cream of the milk was the dancing. Lads,
the best dancers in Ireland, would not fail to attend. Every inn in the town
would have a floor in its yard. The best of them were in the Yellow House,
Connor’s and Curtis’s. There were all kinds of musicianers, but blind Kitty
Shea and her daughter were as good as the best. They did well enough out of
it, too, for the music was auctioned there the same as here in Killenarden. We
would be selling all day and dancing all night. Them were the days!'
George A. Little (ed.), Malachi Horan Remembers, Dublin, 1943.