Posted on May 11, 2024
At 4:15 p.m. on a Tuesday, the parking lot behind the Harriman Community Center is packed with minivans. Inside Studio B, fifteen 10-year-olds stand frozen in first position, arms pinned to their sides, waiting for the downbeat. When the accordion kicks in, the sound is immediate and overwhelming—fiberglass tips and leather heels striking a sprung maple floor in perfect unison.
This is Irish dance in Macy City. And according to the people doing it, the scene here has never been more crowded, more competitive, or more tightly knit.
A Small City With an Outsize Reputation
Macy City is home to four active Irish dance schools: the McTiernan Academy, Inisheer Dance Collective, the O'Connor School, and the newer, competition-focused firm of Burke & Reilly. Together they enrollment roughly 340 students, up from an estimated 210 a decade ago, according to instructors and long-time parents.
That growth is visible at venues like the Harriman Center, which now books Irish dance recitals six months in advance. But the expansion is not without friction. The McTiernan Academy and O'Connor School, both founded in the early 1990s, have long dominated regional Oireachtas championships. Burke & Reilly, opened in 2019, has begun breaking that lock with an aggressive competitive schedule and a younger crop of teachers.
"The first thing people ask is, 'Are the schools friendly?'" said Fiona Delaney, director of Inisheer Dance Collective, the city's only non-competitive program. "The answer is complicated. We borrow each other's musicians. We do a combined St. Patrick's Day showcase every year. But on competition weekends? Everyone wants to win."
What the Training Actually Looks Like
Delaney's beginners—some as young as four—start in soft shoes called ghillies, learning to point their toes and keep their arms straight. By age eight, many have switched to hard shoes with fiberglass tips, the instrument that produces the percussive crack synonymous with Irish step dancing.
At Burke & Reilly, the schedule intensifies quickly. Competitive dancers aged 12 to 18 attend four classes weekly, plus private lessons, cross-training in Pilates, and weekend workshops. The school's studio on Crescent Avenue features sprung floors imported from Harlequin, a British manufacturer whose surfaces are designed to reduce joint impact during repetitive pounding.
"It looks effortless when you watch Riverdance," said 16-year-old competitive dancer Maeve Kowalski, who trains at Burke & Reilly. "It's not. I've had plantar fasciitis twice. My friend had a stress fracture in her tibia. But there's a moment in competition when everything clicks—the sound, the timing, the adrenaline—and you remember why you do it."
The economics are substantial. Parents of competitive dancers estimate annual costs between $4,000 and $7,000, factoring in tuition, solo dresses that can run $2,500 or more, travel to feiseanna (regional competitions), and weekly private lessons. Beginner track families typically spend $1,200 to $1,800 per year.
Local businesses have stepped into that gap. O'Malley's Pub on Front Street sponsors the St. Patrick's Day showcase. The Dancewear Loft, a downtown retailer, offers a 15 percent discount to enrolled students from all four schools. And in 2022, a group of parents launched the nonprofit Soles & Stories, which collects outgrown costumes and resells them at reduced prices.
Two Generations, One Studio
Siobhan Ruiz, 38, enrolled at the McTiernan Academy in 2023, twenty years after quitting as a teenager. She now dances in Inisheer's adult recreational class alongside seven other returnees and two complete beginners.
"I grew up in Boston, where Irish dance was everywhere," Ruiz said. "When I moved to Macy City for work, I assumed I'd have to drive to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to find a school. Instead I found four, ten minutes from my apartment."
Her 7-year-old daughter, Lucia, started soft-shoe classes at McTiernan last September. Ruiz describes their Saturday mornings as "a negotiation over mirror space and whose turn it is to pick the breakfast spot after." The arrangement has its tensions—Lucia is already asking about competition teams, while Ruiz prefers the no-pressure adult track—but Ruiz says the shared vocabulary has changed their relationship.
"We practice our skips together in the kitchen. She corrects my posture. It's ridiculous and wonderful."
The Weekend That Brings Everyone Together
The schools' rivalry cools each March for the Macy City Irish Arts Festival, a three-day event now in its 19th year. The 2024 festival, held March
