JO McNamara doesn’t refer to her walking stick by name. She cannot bring herself to mention it but neither can she avoid pointing towards it. It has to be noted that Jo, who now lives in Moyasta with her son Alan, is 96-years-old.

 

There are plenty of people 20 years younger than Jo who need the aid of a walking implement to guide them. Jo earned a living performing and teaching dance in Ireland, London and New York and was always fully mobile. That’s probably why her slightly restricted mobility is difficult to accept.

“I could have kept dancing on and on but almost two years ago, I was getting my passport renewed in New York after doing a show with Mick Moloney. I walked up the big white steps, I turned around quickly, missed the first step and ended up a week in the hospital,” Jo told The Clare Champion in Moyasta recently.

A teacher at the Irish Arts Centre in New York at the time, Jo was on the missing list from work for a while.

“They were looking for me all the time. They couldn’t find out what became of me. One of the doctors said when I was leaving, ‘you’re going to need this for a while’. But I thought it would only be for a little while,” she lamented, again referring to the walking stick.

Jo taught dancing at the Irish Arts Centre for 30 years and performed in all parts of New York, including Harlem.

“I taught everything from Irish step, tap, old-time waltzes and even tango. I taught a bit of everything. I don’t regret the life it was,” Jo reflected.

Before emigrating to New York, Jo worked in Dublin as a child dancer and later in London. “I started at about six or seven doing Irish dancing in Dublin. Then, at about eight, I learned how to do splits and cartwheels. We got a lot of jobs in Dublin. We were called the Ten Tiny Tots.

“Every Christmas we’d be in a pantomime in the Gaiety, the Olympia or Queens. We used to perform in all of those theatres. Then, when I was about 16 or 17, my oldest sister was married in London,” Jo recalled. So she headed across the Irish Sea for a visit.

“While I was over there, looking through the papers, I saw there was an advert for dancers. Even though I was only on holiday, I took a chance to see what it would be like. I was taken on and we went all around London. It wasn’t the greatest show. We danced at greyhound race meetings and things like that. I came back then and I joined the Fit Ups all around Ireland,” Jo explained.

The Fit Ups were all the rage in the early decades of the last century. “The Fit Ups was the form of entertainment in Ireland from the 1920s until the 1950s,” her son Alan explained.

“Then, with the advent of television, it died out. It was called Fit Ups because they would do a little bit of Shakespeare, a little bit of whatever the popular film of the time was. They would do 15 minutes of everything so they were constantly back stage changing into this and that. So it got the nickname the Fit Ups. They were travelling theatres in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales,” Alan said.

Such was Jo’s impact in New York, she was honoured 21 years ago by Irish America magazine. “It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been selected as one of the top 100 Irish Americans of 1991 by Irish America magazine,” the citation read.

While in the US, Jo worked and became friends with Gabriel Byrne, Milo O’Shea and Ronnie Drew, while Maureen O’Hara was also among those honoured in 1991.

When asked what her favourite form of dance was, Jo replied, “I’d say tap dancing. You could let yourself go more so than you could with Irish. But I like Irish dancing too.”

The Irish Arts Centre has changed radically since it opened for business during the Civil Rights era in the States. Alan said the centre has a rather colourful past.

“The Irish wanted to show there was more to them than Catholicism. So they got a garage on the West Side. It was originally for making bullet-proof limousines for South American dictators.

“The lads brought in electricity from the street lighting outside, down into the basement and started giving music lessons to people. It just grew from there. A lot of us left in the 1970s. It’s gone totally upscale from the old hippie era, where nobody could see properly with the smoke,” he laughed.

As for his mother, she may have retired from teaching dance and performing professionally but she didn’t let that stop her dancing at Garrihy’s in Moyasta recently at her birthday party. And while it hasn’t been fully confirmed, there is a possibility that Jo might take to the stage when Crack’d Spoon Theatre Company present The Lughnasa Full Moon Cabaret on Thursday at the new theatre in Kilkee library.

The concert will include mime, comedy, tango, chanteuse and drama. Monies raised by the event will be donated to the West Clare Mental Health Association and Brothers of Charity Research and Community Services.

Contact 9060769 for ticket information or the Sweeney Culturann Library Theatre. The concert will run from 8pm to 10.30pm.

 

Gabriel Byrne pays tribute to ‘Jo Mac’

NOT many internationally-renowned actors ring The Clare Champion to talk in effusive terms about their friends. Gabriel Byrne did just that, though, when he heard that Jo McNamara was to be featured this week.

The Dublin-born actor described Jo as a legend in New York and an inspiration to people who have met and worked with her.

“I got to know Jo maybe 15 years ago at the Irish Arts Centre in New York, where she was a dancing teacher. She’s an inspirational woman really. The amount of people she shared her passion for Irish dancing with is endless; people from all nationalities in New York. I think they learned to dance because of her passion and her enthusiasm for dancing.

“She’s had her troubles in life, like everybody has but the reason I’d say she is inspirational is in the way that she has dealt with those set-backs. She has dealt with them in a very quiet, brave way,” Gabriel said.

“People absolutely adore Jo Mac in New York. She is a legend there. When she shows up, the whole room lights up. When somebody has a passion for something like dancing or art, it can’t help but influence the people around them. But it’s not just as a teacher that I really admire Jo. It’s as a person for her modesty, her gentleness and her curiosity about life. It’s an amazing thing to be still curious about the world at 96 years of age and to be so optimistic about life,” he marvelled.

Gabriel feels Jo’s lust for life has contributed to her excellent health and longevity.

“Her son, Alan, sent me a little piece of film of Jo’s party last week at which she was dancing with a cane. Now that we’re getting to a time when people’s ages are getting greater and technology is allowing people to live to older ages, you have to look at somebody like Jo, who has never had any of those kinds of procedures done. You’ve got to look and ask why is it she lived to be 96 with this incredible optimism? She has a deep faith and I think that also sustains her,” he reflected.

“Having a passion in life, for whatever it is, allows you to engage fully with the world. It’s not as if she indulged this passion quietly by herself somewhere. She was always engaged with people and especially young people,” Gabriel concluded.