Figure 1.--

The Irish Set Dances (as distinguished from the set step dances) are the evolutionary descendants of the Quadrilles danced at the French court in the late 18th and early 19th century and other related dances from Scotland, and elsewhere. These dances were brought to Ireland and taught by early dancing masters who adapted them, to Irish traditional music and modified and elaborated them to show off their dancing prowess. In time, various regions of the country retained and danced the local "set" at crossroads and in homes, even when the Catholic Church used the Public Dance Hall Act of 1935 to try to stamp them out. It survived best in those parts of the country that held most strongly to their traditions. Although the ceili dances were held by some to be more Irish, the only dances that could be found in places like the Kerry gaeltachta were the sets. The Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and the Gaelic Athletic Association began to sponsor competitions in the 1950's and 1960's and the 1980's and 1990's have seen a large-scale revival of the popularity of set dancing. Today, we can count approximately 100 different sets gathered from localities in all parts of Ireland, although it has been said that the dancing only four of them has never lapsed: the Caledonian, Connemara, Cashel, and Sliabh Luachra.

Set dancing is danced wherever there is a gathering of like-minded people throughout Ireland. Also in London (the traditional set dancing capital of the world), other major cities in the UK, many Irish communities in the U.S., and derivatives are danced in Quebec, Nova Scotia, & Cape Breton, and some other Irish communities in Europe. Set Dancing has become the more popular form of Irish folk dancing in most of Ireland and the United States and probably Britain. The set dances would have been done as house dances in the rural areas of Ireland where traditional music held strong though obviously they were danced out a larger halls to bigger ceili bands as time went along as were the ceili or figure dances. I don't think I ever saw a ceili dance being done in a pub in Ireland although they were done all the time in New York pubs before the set-dancing revival of the 1980's.

Unlike ceili dancing which was a deliberate creation in the late 1800s and which has no regional styles to speak of--set dancing as revived in the last 20 years is almost entirely traditional, sets have been (and still are being) collected from the memories of the old people and most of the sets have a respective and distinct regional style which includes steps (batters) that go with them.

Whilst ceili dances can be taught/learnt from a video or worse a book, it is almost impossible to learn the sets from anything other than an experience and knowledgeable teacher. With the sets - because they all have different regional styles - to be true to the tradition it is importnat that those styles be learnt. Sadly in Ireland (particularly) the regional styles and the details of the dances are getting forgotten as enthusiasts try and learn more and more dances. Of course traditionally folks only got to learn the local set or perhaps three at most.

But things are changing--rapidy. A typical dance is the Clare Lancers which was collected and revived in the 1980s as a silent and smooth dance. However it is now battered to death because everyone wants to demonstrate how good they are by competing with each other to see who can make the most noise over the music. The set dancers of today seem to have little respect for the tradition despite the excellent teachers that are around over here. Usually the music is now too loud, too fast, lacking in lilt, and 'all the samey' - a result of pub session musicians trying to play for dancing. In consequence the dancing has got noisier and more frenetic, and indeed at the speed performed now-a-days there is little need to learn the 'correct' batter(s) or style(s) - you don't have time for such niceties. And people are now starting to wear heavy step dance shoes (with fibre glass soles) so that they can make even more noise, which drowns the music so you can't dance in time to it, etc. There are also radical changes in some of the movements especially in the Clare sets.

These changes have actually driven the older folk away from the scene, and the average age of set dancers would be 30'ish and getting younger. About 20 years ago it would have been 50'ish.