'O! The sound of the Kerry dancing'
One of our favourite diversions [1901] is an occasional glimpse of a 'crossroads dance' on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, when all the young people of the district are gathered together. Their religious duties are over with their confessions and their masses, and the priests encourage these decorous Sabbath gaieties. A place is generally chosen where two or four roads meet, and the dancers come from the scattered farmhouses in every direction. In Ballyfuschia, they dance on a flat piece of road under some fir-trees and larches, with stretches of mountain covered with yellow gorse or purple heather, and quiet lakes lying in the distance. A message comes down to us at Ardnagreena - where we commonly spend our Sunday afternoons - that they expect a good dance, and the blind boy is coming to fiddle; and 'so if you will be coming up, it's welcome you'll be.' We join them about five o'clock - passing, on our way, groups of 'boys' of all ages from sixteen upwards, walking in twos and threes, and parties of three or four girls by themselves; for it would not be etiquette for the boys and girls to walk together, such strictness is observed in these matters about here. When we reach the rendezvous we find quite a crowd of young men and maidens assembled; the girls all at one side of the road, neatly dressed in dark skirts and light blouses, with the national woollen shawl over their heads. Two wide stone walls, or dykes, with turf on top, make capital seats, and the boys are at the opposite side, as custom demands. When a young man wants a partner, he steps across the road and asks a colleen, who lays aside her shawl, generally giving it to a younger sister to keep until the dance is over, when the girls go back to their own side of the road and put on the shawls again. Upon our arrival we find the 'sets' already in progress; a 'set' being a dance like a very intricate and very long quadrille. We are greeted with many friendly words, and the young boatmen and farmers' sons ask the ladies, 'Will you be pleased to dance, miss?' Some of them are shy, and say they are not familiar with the steps; but their would-be partners remark encouragingly: 'Sure, and what matter? I'll see you through.' Soon all are dancing, and the state of the road is being discussed with as much interest as the floor of a ballroom. Eager directions are given to the more ignorant newcomers, such as, 'Twirl your girl, captain!' or 'Turn your back to your face!' - rather a difficult direction to carry out, but one which conveys its meaning. Salemina confided to her partner that she feared she was getting a bit old to dance. He looked at her grey hair carefully for a moment, and then said chivalrously: 'I'd not say that was old age, ma'am, I'd say it was eddication'. When the sets, which are very long and very decorous, are finished, sometimes a jig is danced for our benefit. The spectators make a ring, and the chosen dancers go into the middle, where their steps are watched by a most critical and discriminating audience with the most minute and intense interest. Our Molly is one of the best jig dancers among the girls here (would that she were half as clever at cooking!); but if you want to see an artist of the first rank, you must watch Kitty O'Rourke, from the neighbouring village of Dooclone. The half door of the barn is carried into the ring by one or two of her admirers, whom she numbers by the score, and on this she dances her famous jig polthogue, sometimes alone and sometimes with Art Rooney, the only worthy partner for her in the Kingdom of Kerry. Art's mother, 'Bid' Rooney, is a keen matchmaker, and we heard her the other day advising her son, who was going to Dooclone, to have a 'weeny court' with his colleen, to put a clane shirt on him in the middle of the week, and disthract Kitty intirely by showin' her he had three of thim, anyway!