Crowds turn out for Dan Furey Festival

LABASHEEDA hosted its 18th Dan Furey weekend of set dancing last weekend. Secretary Liam Woulfe said it was quite a success and said that there had been a lot of effort put in by a large number of people from the community.

“We had about 85 helping in some way or another and in a small community like it, it’s a lot to co-ordinate and it was a big community effort,” he said.

He said there had been quite a full and interesting programme. “Father Tom McGrath performed the opening. He’s from here and retired from Kenya. He spoke about the love of music and dance among the people of Kenya and how that is mirrored here.

“On Saturday we had our workshops and there was a very interesting talk at the Battery then for Heritage Week, on the history of the Napoleonic fortress there and it was linked to the other ones around the Estuary, given by Stephen McDonagh.

“They had a lovely little céilí back at the fortress on Sunday morning and we had a parade that was great craic altogether. Then there was a céilí with the Kilfenora at 3pm on the Sunday and there was a great crowd around for that. There was food and bouncy castles and things like that.”

He said Dan Furey had a huge passion for the local dances and had become a well-known figure as the years went by.

“Dan, all his life, was big into the dances of the area, step dancing and set dancing. They’re kind of unique dances and they reckon they came together here because there were soldiers posted back at the battery and they used have dances that the locals would go to and they’d go to the locals’ houses too.

“They reckoned it was kind of a combination of ideas from the two. Dan, from a young age just wanted to learn them and he wasn’t that interested in farming, he’d be supposed to be doing jobs but instead he’d be outside at the dancing. As he got older he started going around on his bicycle to the halls in West Clare, and eventually he got a Morris Minor which he had for years and years.

“It was through his friend James Keane that he got to be more widely known. James had started teaching a bit up at the Willie Clancy and he brought Dan up with him, and they started getting invited all over the place.”