Let’s Hear It for the Clueless Feis Parent

This year at the CLRG Worlds, one of my favourite interview features I conducted for The Irish Dance Globe was quizzing dads on Irish dance. I asked them to name set dances, and they confidently named ceilis. I asked them what electrical tape is for: “It holds the socks up!” Even with some of their hilariously wrong answers, I was impressed — not just by their passion for Irish dance, but by the school merchandise they were rocking in support of their daughters.

“You’re way more knowledgeable than my dad ever was!” I told them. It was true. My dad was the epitome of a “confused feis dad”, with his hilariously confident but wrong, albeit supportive, Facebook posts. His Irish dance confusion included, but was not limited to: posting a picture of me at Worlds with the caption “Oona at Nationals”; congratulating me on my placement at Nationals with a picture of me at a random St Patrick’s Day dance-out; thinking my Irish dance dresses were $500; and never learning that feis is not pronounced “fez” until well into my competitive career.

I often would quiz him on Irish dance just for fun. When I asked him to name one Irish dancer, his response was “Patrick Flatley!” Well, he got the last name right, at least.

The man went to all of three feiseanna in my entire dance career, including one feis that was only a 30-minute drive away. The last one he attended was when I was only 12 years old, even though my competitive career didn’t end until age 18. He would get passionately heated about things he did not understand at all. One example I remember is when I got my first-ever solo dress for Oireachtas. It was a peak 2007 fashion pink camouflage Siopa Rince wrap skirt that I absolutely adored. He was furious, convinced that my dance teachers must have done this purposely to make me look bad, and worried that the judges would tank my placements if I wore something so ugly. I tried to explain to him that I chose this dress. I wanted it, and I loved it, and it was made by one of the top dress designers of the time.

Yes, he could not name a set dance, or any dance for that matter. He did not know the ins and outs of how one qualifies for Nationals or Worlds. Much to my embarrassment, he would often call random old friends I had never met to brag about how I was “one of the best Irish dancers in the world!” He made a very reluctant 18-year-old me stand in the garden, posing in front of all of my trophies, many of which I was about to throw away because they were taking up space and collecting dust in the basement. He was always far more enthusiastic about my accomplishments than I was.

He was indeed confused about many Irish dance-related things, but support for dance can come in unexpected ways. Dance practice and competitions can be stressful. Having a parent at home who is less directly involved can provide a needed escape from the intensity of class and competitions. Even brief conversations or fun non-dance-related activities can break up the tedium and exhaustion of intense training.

They can provide emotional and moral support simply by being there to help build a dancer’s self-esteem and remind them of who they are outside of just being “a dancer”. They can be a dancer’s biggest cheerleader, ready to celebrate happy placements while also being there to cheer up a dancer after a disappointing one.

A dance parent who does not fully understand the complexities of Irish dance can also help keep it fun. When we spend so much time surrounded by intense competition, we can easily lose sight of the bigger picture. Dance is supposed to be fun.

He was silly, always there to joke around about dance after a hard practice or when I first came home from a major competition. In a highly competitive, tense environment like Irish dance, it is nice to have some laughter at the end of a long day. He made photo edits and jokes about many of the ridiculous scenarios I told him about from dance.

One of my earliest memories from when I first started Irish dance lessons was when my dad drove me to the park, and I held an Irish dance show with my American Girl dolls. He filmed me as I made my dolls flail their legs chaotically and recorded it on his camcorder (no wonder my dolls’ legs fell off; I don’t think they were built for Irish dancing). Despite his utter confusion about the competitive world, he always found ways to keep it fun and funny for me outside the studio and off the stage.

Not all parents are capable of physically being present at dance competitions, but that does not mean they do not care. Their support for their dancer cannot be measured by attendance at competitions or knowledge of the names of their dances. In my dad’s case, he dealt with several complications from poorly controlled Type 1 diabetes. He was prone to wild swings in blood sugar and frequent low blood sugar emergencies. He struggled to walk and even carry out basic day-to-day tasks. A feis or major competition was simply not feasible or realistic for him.

By the time I retired from dance, his kidneys had failed. He began dialysis treatments shortly afterwards. This required him to be hooked up to a machine three (and occasionally, four) days a week, for around four hours each time to artificially filter his blood as a kidney would. These treatments left him exhausted. In the last few years of his life, he spent much of the day in bed. We still managed to joke around about dance. Notably, he once joined me in one of my dance videos in which he danced nonsensically in the background. I also once caught him wearing Irish dance socks to dialysis and proceeded to buy him more Irish dance socks to wear. It became a running joke between us.

He died suddenly in March 2021. He never knew the name of my set dance, how much my dress cost, or the difference between Worlds, Nationals, Oireachtas, or a local feis, but I will forever be grateful for those nights after dance practice, just joking around and helping get my mind off the stress of dance.

Irish dance competition was what my mum and I shared — the many long car journeys at weekends, the trips to major competitions, and the drives to and from the studio. My mum knew everything. She knew when I danced well and when I had an off day. She knew the names of many of the set dances, including my Kilkenny Races, which she affectionately just called “the horse”.

But every seasoned Irish dance parent was once a confused feis parent. My mum, too, called them “fezes” when I first showed an interest in competition. She, too, once thought driving over an hour for a competition was crazy, did not know what on earth a hornpipe was, and could not tell if I was completely out of time. Nevertheless, as soon as I expressed interest in dance, she went out of her way to learn as much as possible. She spent hours online reading about Irish dance, but of course, learning about this crazy world takes time. 

Irish dance has a learning curve. It was only through years of experience as a feis mum that my mother learned everything. Every clueless feis parent has the potential to become a very knowledgeable feis parent, but some never will, and that is okay. If nothing else, the behind-the-scenes support and hilariously bad misconceptions about Irish dance provide stories to last a lifetime. Above all else, it is quality time spent together and the emotional support that you will cherish the most, long after you hang up your dancing shoes.