The basement studio of the O'Brien School of Irish Dance smells of rosin, sweat, and something less tangible: the nervous anticipation of teenagers about to run their reels one final time before qualifying weekend. It is a Tuesday evening in February, and 16-year-old Aisling O'Reilly is adjusting her hard shoes, the fiberglass heels clicking against the scuffed wood floor like a metronome she cannot quite control.
"Arms tighter," calls instructor Niamh Brennan, pacing behind the line of dancers. "You are not windshield wipers."
O'Reilly flushes, tucks her arms closer to her sequined vest, and launches back into the routine. In seven weeks, she will compete at the An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) World Irish Dancing Championships in Glasgow—the first Watertown dancer to qualify in three years.
The Post-Pandemic Comeback
For Watertown's Irish dance community, 2024 is less a calendar year than a threshold. The COVID-19 pandemic shuttered studios, forced competitions onto glitchy Zoom platforms, and scattered dancers who had spent years training for stages they suddenly could not reach. Several local schools closed permanently. Others, like Brennan's, survived on emergency grants and outdoor classes in the parking lot behind the Watertown Mall.
"We lost a generation," Brennan says, leaning against the studio's mirrored wall during a water break. "Kids who were ten in 2020—they either quit or they came back completely different. More anxious. More determined. Sometimes both."
That dual current runs through the current cohort of competitive dancers, who range from hobbyists attending one class weekly to elites like O'Reilly, whose daily schedule includes two hours of practice before school and another three after homework. The 2024 season marks the first full return to in-person major championships, and Watertown's dancers have arrived with unexpected force.
Two Dancers, Two Paths
O'Reilly's qualification for Glasgow came after a fourth-place finish at the New England Oireachtas in November 2023, a result that surprised even her. "I fell at Regionals in 2022," she says, tying her hair back with the focused precision of someone who has performed this ritual thousands of times. "Slipped on a sweat spot. Went home and threw my shoes in a closet for three weeks." Her mother, Deirdre, eventually retrieved them. "She didn't say anything. Just left them on my bed."
Cormac Byrne, 14, has never thrown his shoes anywhere. A student at the Celtic Spirit Academy in East Watertown, Byrne competes in the men's under-15 category and trains six days a week, often cross-training with a physical therapist to manage chronic shin splints. His breakthrough came in January 2024, when he placed third at the Mid-Atlantic Championships in Baltimore—his first podium at a major regional.
"I started because my grandmother did step-dancing in County Cork," Byrne says, massaging his calf between exercises. "She'd show me these old videos where the men just stood there, barely moving their upper bodies. I thought it looked like robots. Now I get it. The stillness is the hardest part."
Byrne's tuition, competition fees, and costume expenses—his solo dress cost $2,800—are covered partly by a scholarship fund established in 2019 by the Watertown Irish Cultural Centre. The fund nearly dissolved during the pandemic but was revived last year through a series of pub fundraisers that doubled as showcase performances.
The Ecosystem of Competition
Irish dance operates through a hierarchy that can baffle outsiders. Dancers begin at local feiseanna (pronounced fesh-ANNA), progress to regional oireachtas competitions, and, for the top few percent, advance to the World Championships. CLRG, the largest governing body, oversees approximately 5,000 competitive dancers globally. Qualifying for Worlds requires consistent high placement at multiple majors—not one lucky performance.
Watertown benefits from proximity to Boston's larger Irish dance infrastructure, yet maintains a distinct identity. Local schools emphasize traditional sean-nós (old style) influences alongside the athletic, high-kicking aesthetic that dominates contemporary championships. "We're not Dublin," Brennan notes. "We're not even Boston. We have something scratchier, more stubborn."
That stubbornness has produced measurable results. In 2024, Watertown dancers claimed podium spots at three regional competitions and sent two soloists to Glasgow—O'Reilly and 11-year-old Maeve Kelleher, who qualified in the girls under-12 category. Kelleher's school, the Murphy-Ryan Academy, opened in 2021, making it the pandemic's only local startup. Its survival is attributed partly to founder Colin Murphy
