A sad family occasion in Ireland leads to a new branch in her family tree for April Drew.

Irish weddings are big business and while the recession is certainly cooling down the more extravagant affairs there will still be an estimated 30,000 weddings in Ireland this year. That means there will be literally thousands of opportunities for fools to make eegits of themselves.

Christina Ryan-Kilcoyne doesn’t normally advertise her dance classes. She doesn’t normally have to. “I’ve never had to advertise before,” says the fair-haired teacher from Co. Clare, who came to the U.S. in 1988 and set up a dance school in Pennsylvania. “The kids just used to come. But this year my beginners’ class is down by half.”

A champion Irish dancer has drowned in a fishing accident on Long Island Sound. Billy Laube, 20, from Plainview in Suffolk county, died after the flat-bottomed dinghy he was fishing from capsized near Fort Salonga on Saturday night.

It was a day to remember in Charlotte, North Carolina, Saturday as 400 step dancers congregated and danced their way into the Guinness Book of World Records.

With her glowing wig of black curls and bright smile, Mitsi Fink looks like she’s 18 when she points her toes to dance at the Long Island Feis on Sunday. She has danced for seven years and is in four competitions at the Long Island Feis. But Mitsi only took up step-dancing when she was 25 years old. She’s one of the few adult dancers at the feis and is competing with people much younger than her.

The surname Curran is common in all four provinces in Ireland, but especially in County Donegal and throughout Ulster. The name is also prevalent in the south of Ireland, appearing many times in the County Tipperary Hearth Money Rolls of 1665-7. Currans showed up frequently as Waterford residents in the census of 1659.

The most familiar sound at a feis is normally the jigging of the accordions, keyboards and violins, the instruments that typically accompany Irish step-dancing. At the Rockland County Feis, another noise was in the mix, sharp and sustained – the pipes. More than 35 pipe bands competed at the festival, and it’s one of the bigger pipe band contests in the country.

The Rockland County Feis is in its 36th year of existence. Sponsored by the Rockland County Ancient Order of Hibernians (men’s and women’s divisions), it is an enormous event, and is a huge undertaking to organize.

Lord of the Dance Michael Flatley, the man who singlehandedly turned Irish dance into the phenomenon that it is, may be joining the judging panel of the TV hit "Dancing with the Stars."

On Monday, June 29, Rita Keane of Caherlistrane, County Galway passed away at age 86 in a Galway hospital. Before leaving this earth, however, the pair left a rich legacy for others to emulate and to keep the songs of Ireland inhabited by generations of singers who they touched with their own authentic voices and styles.

Massachusetts tourism officials have won the bid for their capital city to host the 2013 World Irish Dancing Championships.

Sunday was gentlemen’s day at the North American Irish Dance Championships. Men and boys of all ages are milling about, some as young as 9, others in their 20s. So what keeps a guy dancing, when other sports, school and girls could distract him?

Canadians are everywhere at Nashville for the North American Irish Dance Championships. Between the solo dancers, the groups, the adult dancers and youngsters - a huge proportion of them come from America's northern neighbor.

Like many other kids whose ancestral ties to Ireland are blurry, Elle Davidson loves Irish dancing. She has made it to the North American Nationals, proving that you don’t have to be Irish to do it.

These celebs weren't born in Ireland, but that doesn't mean they can't call it home! From Jeremy Irons somewhat infamous pink castle, to Sarah Jessica Parker's Donegal cottage, these stars lay their heads in the Emerald Isle as often as they can.

The George Sweetnam Memorial Trophy, also known as the belt, is for top dancers only, and this year’s winner at the New Haven Feis was Michael Fleck from Indiana.

The 47th edition of the New Haven Irish festival will have a little something for everyone; music, dancing and the chance to win a million dollars on TV show "Deal or no Deal."

Guinness, the Irish-born king of breweries, has revealed the details of the company's 250th anniversary celebration, which will peak on "Arthur’s Day" on September 24. That would be Arthur Guinness, of course, the man who confidently signed the 9,000-year lease on the St. James’s Gate brewery in 1759.

The large scale of the annual Peter Smith Feis reflects Smith’s contribution to Irish dance. Not only is his school one of the biggest on the east coast, Smith himself has actively influenced the direction of Irish dance in the U.S., bringing in a style in the 1950s that has held sway ever since.

One of the fascinating aspects of traditional Irish music is that it is a great magnet for making friends who may last your entire lifetime and band families together with the common bonds it engenders. This past weekend certainly was indicative of that as two separate and thoroughly enjoyable occasions came back to back on Friday and Saturday and were worth noting in this space.

It was like they appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly, the dancing space at the United Irish Counties Feis was filled. Kids wearing rather non-traditional yellow t-shirts, running shoes and jeans danced, hands on their hips, and the audience began to clap along.

Irish dancing dresses are often truly gorgeous. They gleam with sequins, come in all colors, and combined with the wigs and tiaras, make the dancers look like princesses.

A jovial Longford man who has never lost his accent, Mike Prunty is a vice-president of the United Irish Counties Association of New York, and he put a strong effort at the United Irish Counties Feis on Sunday, June 14. “It keeps the Irish heritage going,” he said. “I love being involved. And I love watching the kids dance.”

With less than three weeks until the North American Irish Dance Championships, dancers are hitting the feis scene to get prepared.

The O’Shea Chaplin Academy hosts its annual Irish Heritage Feis during the second weekend in June. Mary Lynch O’Sullivan, a former champion dancer at O’Shea Chaplin, died of cancer last year at age 47. A memorial trophy will honor the winner of this competition every year at the Irish Heritage Feis.

Over 800 dancers competed from a number of Irish dance schools across the east coast from beginner to championship level at the Irish Heritage Feis, hosted by the O’Shea Chaplin Academy of Irish Dance at Saugus High School on Sunday, June 14.

It is that time of the year again when I am very much in the New York state of mind as the days rapidly approach for another gathering of the trad music universe known as the Catskills Irish Arts Week (CIAW).

Get ready to be up close and personal with the performers of Lord of the Dance. Michael Flatley's international dancing phenomenon is set to return to the Las Vegas Strip this summer for a special limited engagement in an especially intimate venue.

The 48th Annual Detroit International Feis has changed venues this year. And from the comments heard during the Feis, it was for the better.

Feiseanna, and especially the outdoorsy Hartford Feis, are family occasions that go beyond gender. Many dads like to support their children, and they enjoy the atmosphere of the feis too.

It was a big night for 'Billy Elliot' and Irish American Trent Kowalik on Broadway, with the musical taking ten Tonys, including Best Musical and Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. In a first, Kowalik, a World Irish dancing champion and fifth generation Irish-American who traces his heritage to Roscommon, David Alvarez and Kiril Kulish made history when they shared the award for Leading Actor in a Musical.

Has Irish dancing, a once time-honored tradition, digressed into a parade of overly made-up children in glittering pageantry?

Irish Voice columnist Paul Keating takes you through the best Irish Trad events over the upcoming week that take place in the Northeast

While the New York Fleadh held in Pearl River last weekend wouldn’t approximate the level of drama or attendance of the All-Ireland, there was a parallel revelry as the 2009 senior champions, the River Rogues, left the competition hall to perform nearby at Christy’s Pub full of exuberance and satisfaction over the achievements that not only reflected well of them but of the entire Pearl River community.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen led a string of tributes to the memory of the three young doctors, all friends and one a former Riverdance star, who are missing feared dead in the Air France trans-Atlantic disaster. McAleese said, “My thoughts and prayers, and the thoughts of everyone, are with the Irish families and the families of everyone on board at this very difficult time.”

A young Riverdance star is among the three Irish women presumed dead in the Air France airbus A330 disaster. The Irish dancing star, a qualified doctor, was returning from vacation with her two Irish friends and another friend from Britain.

Irish dancing requires a lot of practice from the girls and boys who prance across the stage, but it’s hard work for moms too. There’s much more to it than bringing your kid to dance classes. Who’s going to apply their make-up and choose their dresses? Luckily, Irish dance moms help each other out.

The vast majority of people at a feis are female – moms, daughters, sisters grandmas – but it’s not all one-gender. Dads bring their kids to contests, and help behind the scenes, setting up stages and sound systems. Boys compete too, if in smaller numbers.

It’s a long time since Kathleen Blake has danced herself, but she loves dancing, and she follows her three grand-nieces across the country as they compete in contest after contest. “I love the costumes, the wigs, the music, the competition, the people, the camaraderie,” she says. “I’m obsessive about Irish dance. We’re groupies. We travel wherever they go.”

Feiseanna are growing and getting bigger across the country, she says, and a lot of work has to be done to keep up with these trends. Behind the Mulvihill-Lynch Feis is a seemingly vast network of committees, run by parents and by teachers, and each with its own head.

A round up of Irish traditional music events in the New York area from Paul Keating

The Mulvihill-Lynch Feis, a local competition in Smithtown in Long Island, may seem like a small event by some standards. Organized by Debbie Lynch-Webber, head of the Mulvihill-Lynch School of Irish Dance, it takes place at Smithtown West High School. Yet it draws hundreds of children from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and as many as seven or eight hundred kids will compete. In fact it’s a big deal.

Maggie Revis, native to Putnam Valley, New York, took to the stage in Belgium this past winter for her debut as the female lead dancer in Michael Flatley’s "The Lord of the Dance." Born into a family of competitve dancers, Maggie began her dance career at the age of three and secured her first win at the Mid-Atlantic American Oireachtas (Regional) Dance Competition in Philadelphia by the age of six.

With photo gallery: The sun shone brightly on the 30,000-plus visitors to Chicago’s Gaelic Park as they came to celebrate their Irish heritage at the 23rd Annual Irish Fest.

Irish Canadian model Coco Rocha has taken the fashion world by storm with an unforgettable face, modish look and vivid persona.

Callie Cooper of the Comerford School in the Seattle area was the adjudicators’ choice as “Most Promising Dancer” at the recent Pacific Northwest Irish Dance Championships Feis in Seattle, May 16-17.

A beautiful Spring weekend in Seattle brought almost 500 dancers from the Western US and Western Canada to the Pacific Northwest Irish Dance Championships Feis May 16-17.

The annual New York Fleadh organized by the Mid-Atlantic Region of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann is coming up on the weekend of May 29-31 in Pearl River, New York.

One of the largest gatherings of Irish pride takes place this Memorial Day weekend in Chicago when 250,000 people will dance, sing, hurl and maybe even raise a pint to celebrate their Celtic culture at The Chicago Gaelic Park Irish Fest.