#2 Irish Dance

The scant evidence available is primarily that of visitors to Ireland, such as a fourteenth-century song written in the South of England, where the poet invites his listeners to "come ant daunce wyt me in Irlaunde". The first native Irish documentary evidence of dancing is an account of a Mayor of Waterford's visit to Baltimore, County Cork in 1413, where the attendees "took to the floor" to celebrate Christmas Eve. However, the Norman invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century is likely to have brought with it the round dance tradition, as it was contemporaneously performed in Norman strongholds.