School: Irishtown

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1. Local Heroes - A Good Dancer

   

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   Local heroes. A good dancer.
   About 40 perches from our school there is a neat clean white little thatched cottage situated in its own boreen. In this little cottage lived a man who was famous in his day for dancing. He kept up the art until he was 70 years. My grandfather saw him dance a big open air concert in Milltown at which there were many great artists from Dublin and the surrounding towns, and it was given up to old Jim Keena, then between 60 and 70 years to have the most traditional steps of all present. It was not easy to get him into the spirit of the dance, but once started you could hardly stop him. He did not admire the modern way of dancing Irish dances and often told us our steps were not Irish at all. At the same time he would not teach us his steps, and if he thought we were picking them up he would stop and change the conversation from dancing altogether. You would want to be clever to take up a step from him and we were told the only way to keep him on the floor was to have a little bottle of whiskey with you and give him a drop now and again to keep up his spirits. He died two years ago at the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. historical persons (~5,068)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Maureen Kelly

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   14

   Address

   Irishtown, Co. Westmeath

   Informant

   Patrick Lennon

   Relation

   Grandparent

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   97

   Address

   Paddinstown Upper, Co. Westmeath