Having won fame among dancers partaking in Bernards Summer School 2009 in the Czech Republic, Gerard Butler, the Irish set-dancing teacher accepts Rinceorí´s invitation to come back to Prague to give a sean nós seminar. Mr. Butler and The Prague Irish Set Dancers are to hold an Irish set-dancing seminar Sat Feb 27, 9:00 - 13:30.
 

Gerard Butler and Václav Bernard - foto Chris Eichbaum

Hello Sean- nós dance, song, music and language lovers,? 

The Sean-nos NorthWest festival is two weeks away. The new website is up and running with schedule, bios, registration and suggested hotels at:
www.seannos.org
If you haven't all ready registered now is the time. You can register online at the address bellow or on the SNNW website.
http://seannosnwfest.eventbrite.com/?ref=etckt

The University of Limerick recently announced the establishment of Ireland 's first national dance archive to be based at the Glucksman Library. The Dance Archive of Ireland will be established through seed funding of €40,000 from the Arts Council and came about through initiatives carried out by Dance Research Forum Ireland, a body set up in 2003 by Dr Catherine Foley, Director of the MA Ethnochoreology and MA Irish Traditional Dance Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at University of Limerick.

In Ireland, one of the most commonly used phrases around the holidays is "Happy Christmas." We thought you might enjoy learning how to say it in Irish as well as a few other phrases you'll hear this time of year.

If you were to say Happy Christmas to just one other person, you would say:
"Nollaig Shona Duit"
(NO-Lihg HO-nuh ghwich).

Ireland, like most countries, has a number of Christmas traditions that are all of its own. Many of these customs have their root in the time when the Gaelic culture and religion of the country were being supressed, and it is perhaps because of that they have survived into modern times.

Believe it or not, it’s been 15 years since "Riverdance" first stomped its way onto the world stage thrilling millions of people around the globe.

Now, the thunderous celebration of Irish music, song and dance returns to where it was first introduced to American audiences, he famed Radio City Music Hall, to play eight farewell performances from March 17-21, 2010.

The performance schedule will be Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Press Release - Issue date: 20 January 2003
UCC to establish Traditional Dance Archive - 20 January 2003
The Music Department at University College Cork is to establish a Traditional Dance Archive. The Archive will contain material relating to the history of Irish dance. Much of this material is ephemeral in nature (posters, brochures, programmes) which is often lost or destroyed before its significance is realised.

Bet you never heard these before!
By CONN CORRIGAN - IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

1. Technically, it is an offense to be drunk in public in Ireland
Technically, it is an offense to be drunk in public in Ireland. Regulations introduced last year allow the police to issue on-the-spot fines for anyone caught being drunk in a public place in Ireland.

Irish stepdancing is suffering thanks to the economic downturn

Arthur Guinness started brewing with GBP 100. It was 1752, he was 27 years old, and his godfather left him the money in his will. A man with foresight, or at least willing to take a risk, three years later he was running his own brewery making ale in Leixlip. Arthur must have been thinking big even then, and it wasn’t long before he headed for Dublin and agreed a 9,000 year lease on a four acre site – the year was 1759 and Guinness as a brewer of porter was founded.
 

The Prague Irish Set dancers would like to invite you to a setdancing weekend workshop with Joe and Janet O´Hara from the UK.
October 31st - November 1st 2009 (9:30 - 12:00 and 01:30 - 04:00 pm both days) in the gym of "Střední hotelová škola", Vršovická 43, Prague 10, Czech Republic.

            Photo by Markéta Bernardová 

Record number of births - highest since 1896 

By KELLY FINCHAM
IrishCentral.Com Editor

The biggest baby boom in more than a century has taken place in Ireland with a staggering 75,065 babies born last year.
This is the biggest number of babies born in the country since 1896.
Almost half of those babies were born to first-time moms while one-third were born in what the Central Statistics Office quaintly terms "outside marriage."
Jack was the number one boy's name for the second year running while Ava was number one - toppling Katie from last year.

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77.

The man known as the "liberal lion of the Senate" had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

IrishCentral exclusively reported that Sen. Edward Kennedy had received the Last Rites from the Catholic Church on Tuesday as he began to lose his battle with the deadly cancer.

Sources close to the family confirmed that Kennedy, deeply religious like all the Kennedys, was anointed by a priest who administered the Sacrament to him at his bedside.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," the Kennedy family said in a statement.