At Emerald Isle Academy and Celtic Rhythm School, students from 4 to 64 are reviving a decades-old tradition—one treble at a time.
On a Tuesday evening in Hoffman Estates, the thud of hard shoes echoes through the mirrored studio at Celtic Rhythm School. Fourteen adult beginners—double the enrollment from 2022—attempt their first treble jigs under the watch of founder Niamh O'Connor, a Dublin native who opened the school in 2015 after relocating from Chicago's south side. Across town at Emerald Isle Academy, a squad of teenage dancers warms up for the upcoming Midwest Championships, their arms rigid at their sides, feet blurring beneath them.
Irish dance in Hoffman Estates is no longer a niche curiosity. It is a growing subculture with schools, competitions, and cross-generational classes that have swelled since pandemic restrictions lifted. What was once a scattered handful of recreational dancers has tightened into something more visible—and more deliberately preserved.
From Ceili to Championship
Irish dance arrived in Hoffman Estates primarily through Chicago's deep Irish-American pipeline, but it took root here through committed instructors and parents willing to drive to the suburbs rather than fight city traffic. O'Connor started Celtic Rhythm with 22 students in a rented church basement. Emerald Isle Academy, founded in 2011 by former Riverdance touring member Colm Brennan, now enrolls just over 90 dancers across beginner, novice, and championship levels.
The schools approach the tradition differently. Celtic Rhythm emphasizes ceili—social, figure-based dances performed in groups—and offers what may be the area's only adult beginner program. Emerald Isle leans into solo competitive styles, the flashy, technically demanding form popularized by Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. Both schools report post-2022 enrollment bumps of roughly 30 percent.
"We lost a year to Zoom," Brennan said. "You cannot teach hard-shoe percussion through a laptop speaker. When we reopened, there was a backlog of kids who had waited, and a surprising number of adults who decided, 'If not now, when?'"
The Feis Returns
The scene's annual proving ground is the Hoffman Estates Feis (pronounced fesh), a regional Irish dance competition held each February at Hoffman Estates High School. The 2024 event drew 340 competitors from seven states and an estimated 800 spectators, according to organizer Sean McLaughlin, a parent volunteer whose two daughters dance at Emerald Isle.
A feis is part athletic meet, part family reunion. Dancers as young as four queue in curled wigs and elaborately embroidered dresses, waiting for their number to be called. Judges sit behind folding tables, marking foot placement and timing. Between rounds, parents unload coolers of sandwiches in the cafeteria and trade gossip about costume suppliers and upcoming majors.
"The feis disappeared in 2021," McLaughlin said. "When it came back in 2023, the energy was different. People didn't take it for granted anymore."
The competition also draws revenue to local hotels and restaurants, a fact not lost on village officials. The Hoffman Estates Chamber of Commerce provided a $4,000 logistics grant for the 2024 event, its first direct sponsorship of the feis.
A 58-Year-Old Beginner
If there is a face to the scene's broadening appeal, it might belong to Margaret Chen, a retired accountant who enrolled in O'Connor's adult beginner class two years ago at age 58. Chen, whose grandchildren attend Emerald Isle's youth program, had never danced before. She now attends two classes per week and performed her first reel at the school's December recital.
"I thought it would be a nice way to understand what my grandkids were obsessed with," Chen said. "Instead, I became obsessed myself. The math of it—the rhythm, the counts—appeals to me. But it's also the community. These women know my coffee order. They text me when I miss class."
Chen is not an outlier. O'Connor's adult class now includes a software engineer, a nurses' aide, and a recently widowed grandfather who drives from Palatine. The common thread, O'Connor said, is not Irish heritage—only about half her adult students have any—but the desire for structured challenge and social connection.
"Adults don't need medals," O'Connor said. "They need a reason to show up. Irish dance gives them that. It's difficult enough to humble you, and joyful enough to keep you coming back."
Suburban Roots, Broader Context
Hoffman Estates does not have the highest concentration of Irish-Americans in the Chicago metro area—that distinction belongs to neighborhoods like Beverly and suburbs like Oak Park. What it offers, dancers and instructors say, is space and accessibility. Rents for studio space run lower than in the city. Parking is abundant. Families from Schaumb
