Jerry O`Reilly
Jerry O`Reilly from Dublin is a singer and dancer. A founder member of Brooks Academy in 1982 he is still actively involved and teaches a weekly dance class there
He has taught dancing in Paris to the Association Irlandaise annually since 1988, at the Willie Clancy Summer School since 1984, at Wadebridge in 1998, at Sidmouth in 1999 and 2011, 2012, 2013 and at Whitby every year since 2000. He has taught dancing at the North American Convention of Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Eireann in Washington D.C. in 2000, and paid a return visit there in December 2001. He has taught dancing at “Feile Cois Chuain” in 2004 and 2013, The North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Aberdeen in 2006, in St. John’s, Newfoundland in 2008 again in Aberdeen in 2010 and in Derry/Donegal in 2012.He has taught at the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival in 2008 and in The Southbank Centre in London as part of the Cultura Obscura Festival in 2011.
He has made several successful dancing and teaching trips to Australia and has taught workshops in Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and at The National Folk Festival in Canberra . He is in demand as a teacher/caller all over Ireland, the U.K., Europe, The United States, Australia and Canada.
Jerry is also a noted singer and is one of the organisers of the Goilín Traditional Singers Club in Dublin, which is reckoned to be the foremost singing club in Ireland and which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in March 2019. He has acted as M.C. / Fear ‘a Ti at all of the major singing festivals in Ireland in recent years. He has also been involved with the production of several fine C.D.’s of traditional singing in English and also the Irish language. In 2003 he released his first solo C.D. called “Down from your pulpits, Down from your thrones”, which was enthusiastically received. Amongst his later projects were the production of “Around the Hills of Clare”, the double C.D. of archive recordings from the Jim Carroll and Pat MacKenzie collection, which has been described as an inestimable resource by reviewers, “The Spoons Murder and Other Mysteries”, a book and C.D. of the songs of Con “Fada” O’ Drisceóil, which has been a “best seller” and “ Cascades of Song” the C.D. of the Clare Festival of Traditional Singing, which was released in 2008 to popular acclaim. His second album, “Havoc in Heaven” was launched in early 2012 and has been described by The Irish Times as “a strapping collection which will fuel repertoires from Stonybatter to Sneem”.
In recent years he has been involved with the Man, Woman and Child ballad project in researching Irish versions of Child’s collection. In December 2015 he was instrumental in re-publishing ‘Early Ballads in Ireland’ celebrating the work of Tom Munnelly and Hugh Shields, two of Ireland’s foremost collectors of folksong. In 2016 he was part of the 1916 Song Project, which involved researching and writing a ‘new’ song around the centenary of The 1916 Rising.
Jerry is one of the main organisers of the Frank Harte Festival and has be Event manager and coordinator since its inception in 2006.
Rosie Davis has been a dancer and musician for almost all of her life, born in Liverpool into a musical family, she was encouraged to dance from the age of three. Having a strong interest in folk music and traditional dance found her dancing Lancashire Clog dancing in her late teens and twenties, Appalachian clogging and flat foot in her thirties, Southern English stepping in her fifties and with a move to Dublin in 2013 Irish Sean Nós in her sixties !
Sean Nós - means Old Style and the term is now used to mean a freestyle, improvised step dance with the feet close to the floor, sometimes based on battering or the stepping used for Set Dancing (Irish Quadrilles).
Rosie has developed her Sean Nós style through a study of the ‘old school’ Irish Traditional Step Dance steps as recorded by Michael Tubridy of the dances taught by West Clare dance masters Dan Furey and James Keane, by watching other dancers, and using her experience of allied traditional dance forms to explore the rhythms of traditional Irish music. With her musical knowledge and understanding of how solo traditional dance can fit into and enliven a music session, she has been welcomed into the Irish music scene in Dublin and beyond. She dances regularly at sessions in The Cobblestone, Dublin’s premier traditional music pub.
Since moving to Dublin Rosie has become a member of Brooks Academy Set Dancers and has danced on the Abbey Theatre and at the Céilí Mór which is part of Dublin’s official St Patrick’s day celebration. Together with Jerry O’Reilly she has facilitated classes and events focusing on Céilí dancing for all.
