In September, 2006 one of the Senior Dancers Leona Crawford finished her Teachers Training Course with Cairde Damhsa Irish Dance Teachers Association and when she passed her final examination Elizabeth asked her if she would be interested in joining her as a Teacher in the class. It was then decided to re name the class The Claddagh School of Irish Dancing and it has been going really well.

The classes are held in St Mary’s Youth Club in Claddagh Green, Ballyfermot and Cherryorchard Community Centre. We have dancers from age three years up to our Senior Dancers some of who are also in Training for their Teachers Examinations. The majority of our pupils come from the Ballyfermot, Palmerstown, Clondalkin areas but we have some from Kildare and Finglas too.

Most of our dancers are made up of cousins, sisters or friends and have formed strong friendships over the years. As most of our dancers start at an early age we get to know all them really well and have been so lucky to get such nice dancers over the years.

Our dancers compete in Feiseanna at least one per month and the highlight is Our All Ireland Feis which is held in June each year. Even though our dancers compete against each other they will still encourage and congratulate each other on their achievements and help each other out

In our organisation we wear class costumes or a simple skirt and top we are not allowed to wear solo costumes at all. Our class costume is Green, White and Gold with the Claddagh emblems on it. Some of the dancers have the costume in gabardine and some have the original design of green velvet. We had to revert to the gabardine when we found it impossible to get the green velvet.

We regularly go on trips with the dancing we have been to Euro Disney Paris, Wales, Germany, France, Oslo, Florida, Tacoma USA and many parts of England and Scotland including the Aberdeen International Youth Festival.

The motto of our dancing organisation is Cairde Damhsa meaning dancing friends and we find that our girls also have made friends with dancers from other schools in our organisation and when the go away as part of the Emerald Isle Irish Dance Team they perform to the highest standard and really enjoy the social aspect of the many trips. We have wonderful parents who are really interested in their children and go to great lengths and expense to give them a hobby that not only keeps them fit but also helps them to integrate with each other and gives them a talent that they can be proud of. It is also great to see how well they integrate when they travel to different events and visit other countries as an ambassador for their country and they do us proud every time. They have also made a lot of friends in other countries and still keep in touch with them over the years.

Liz and Leona are also two of the Teachers with the Emerald Isle Irish Dance Team and have travelled all over the world with this group. The Emerald Isle Irish Dance Team was founded by Pat McNally who is also the Director of Music and organises the events we travel to Pat has many contacts from his own music days when he travelled the world playing in a military band. The entire Emerald Isle Irish Dance Team is made up of several schools from Cairde Damhsa including The Rita Sutton School; we also have dancers from The Marie Farrell Caffrey School and have had guest dancers from The Mary Gohery School. Amanda Farrell who also runs the Amanda Farrell School in Kilcullen Co. Kildare does the Choreography.

The Emerald Isle have performed in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo on two occasions, and also in Oslo, Germany, France, Wales, Russia, Belgium, many parts of Scotland and England.Our main trip this year with the Emerald Isle Irish Dance Team is to Switzerland to perform at the Basel Tattoo in July for ten days.