May 11, 2024 | By Clara Brennan
On a Saturday morning in Webster Groves, thirteen-year-old Aisling Moran laces her hard shoes in the hallway of a converted church basement. Downstairs, the unmistakable thunder of thirty pairs of feet fills the room—reels and jigs hammered out with machine precision. It's the Celtic Steps School of Irish Dance, and Moran is warming up for her second feis of the season. She is not Irish. Neither are roughly half the dancers in her class.
This scene would have been hard to imagine two decades ago. Yet across Missouri, Irish dance schools have multiplied, turning the Show-Me State into an unlikely stronghold for one of the world's most demanding folk art forms.
A Quiet Boom in the Midwest
Missouri's Irish dance infrastructure now includes at least nine certified schools stretching from Kansas City to Springfield, with the heaviest concentration in the St. Louis metro area. The growth has been especially sharp since 2019. Celtic Steps, founded in 2003 by TCRG-certified instructor Margaret O'Brien, has doubled its enrollment in the past five years. O'Brien, who emigrated from County Cork in 2001, now employs three additional teachers and rents space four nights a week.
"I came here to teach in a program that had maybe twenty kids," O'Brien said. "Now we're at ninety-four enrolled, with a waiting list for the beginner class. Midwesterners are hungry for connection to heritage—even families with no Irish background want their children to experience something this disciplined and joyful."
That hunger is not accidental. St. Louis has one of the largest Irish-American populations in the Midwest, a legacy of nineteenth-century immigration that built the city's infrastructure and shaped its political culture. For decades, that identity expressed itself mainly through the annual St. Patrick's Day parade and neighborhood pubs. Irish dance remained largely invisible outside a handful of recreational classes.
The turning point, according to several instructors, came in the mid-2010s, when competitive Irish dance gained national exposure through viral performance videos and streaming documentaries. Parents began seeking out structured alternatives to ballet and gymnastics. Schools responded by expanding their recreational tracks while building competitive programs capable of qualifying dancers for regional and national championships.
What It Takes
Irish dance demands an unusual combination of athletic rigor and musical exactitude. The upper body stays rigid while the legs execute rapid, intricate sequences—crossed ankles, pointed toes, and complex rhythms beaten out in hard shoes with fiberglass tips. A single eight-bar step can take weeks to master.
At the Rince Nua School in Kansas City, founder and TCRG-certified teacher Sean McKenna structures classes to build technique from the ground up. Beginners start in soft shoes called ghillies, learning the basic reel and light jig. Only after several years of consistent training do students advance to hard-shoe dances like the hornpipe and the heavy jig. Set dances—dramatic, choreographed pieces performed by individuals or small groups—come last.
"People see Riverdance and think it's all flash," McKenna said. "But the foundation is hours of repetitive drills, building the muscle memory so the performance looks effortless. There's no shortcut."
For competitive dancers, the calendar revolves around feiseanna—regional competitions sanctioned by An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha, the global governing body. Missouri now hosts multiple feiseanna annually, including the St. Louis Feis each February and a newer competition in Springfield launched in 2022. The 2024 St. Louis event drew 340 dancers from twelve states. Four Missouri dancers qualified for the Oireachtas, the North American championships, with one advancing to the World Irish Dancing Championships in Glasgow.
More Than Steps
The competitive glitter attracts headlines, but instructors and parents say the real value lies elsewhere. Julie Hartmann, a pediatric nurse from Columbia, enrolled her son in Irish dance at age seven after he struggled to connect with team sports. He is now thirteen and preparing for his first solo competition.
"He was so awkward, so hesitant to put himself forward," Hartmann said. "Irish dance gave him a physical discipline where he could compete against himself. The community is incredibly supportive. These kids cheer for each other at feiseanna even when they're direct competitors."
That community extends beyond the studio walls. Missouri's Irish dance schools regularly organize ceili social dances, St. Patrick's Day performances at nursing homes, and summer workshops with visiting masters from Ireland. The schools have also begun collaborating with local musicians, creating performance opportunities that blend live traditional music with choreography.
For adult beginners, the environment offers a rare second chance at technical training. O'Brien runs a Wednesday evening class for dancers over eighteen, a demographic that has grown steadily since 2021. The students include empty-nest parents, recent transplants looking to build social connections, and at least
