WATCH: Kildare Irish dancers delight with St. Brigid’s Cross choreography

Kildare Irish Figure Dancers performed wonderful choreography in honor of St. Brigid's Day as part of this year's Brigid 1500 celebrations in Co Kildare.

“Happy St Brigids everyone,” Irish dance choreographer Caroline Morrissey said in a post on social media on January 31, the day before St. Brigid’s Day 2024.

“A day early but, I thought I would share this video of the Kildare Irish Figure Dancers performing the St. Brigid’s Cross dance.

“I created this dance as part of the Brigid1500 celebrations,” Morrisey said, adding, “Hope you enjoy it."

Not surprisingly, lots of people are enjoying the original Irish dance number - at the time of publication on February 2, Morrissey's post has been liked more than 2.2k times and shared more than 3.3k times.

It's also received more than 400 comments congratulating Morrissey on her beautiful Irish dance choreography and the dancers on their stellar performance.

Morrissey told IrishCentral on Friday that she runs Kildare Irish Figure Dancers completely voluntarily.

"I brought all the teenage dancers from all the figure dancing classes in south Kildare together to form this group," Morrissey said. She now has 50 Irish dancers, both boys and girls, who range in age from 13 to 25.

Morrissey explained how her St. Brigid's Cross choreography came to be: "As we are from Kildare, we use the St Brigid's Cross as our logo and are very proud to do so.

"Last year, Kildare County Council was giving out grants for Brigid 1500 celebrations and I designed a whole two-hour show which took place in the Osprey in Naas in May.

"We called the show 'Dance For Brigid.' We performed a number of our traditional feis dances and then I created a number of dances to represent the iconic symbols of St Brigid. We had this dance, St Brigids Cross, along with St Brigids Flame, St Brigids Broach, and St Brigids Cloak. We had guest singers perform on the night too.

"The cross dance was created to try and simulate the movements we take to make the traditional St. Brigids Cross."

Morrissey says he has been "blown away" by the response to the video she posted on January 31, and that the dancers are "so excited knowing that there are people all over the world looking at them doing what they love and what we are all passionate about."

Morrissey's passion for Irish figure dancing is evident. 

"The reason I set this group up was to keep this tradition alive and share our love and passion with the world," she told IrishCentral. "It gives the young dancers a safe fun, affordable outlet and they just cannot get enough of Irish dancing."

Morrissey elaborated on the tradition of Irish Figure Dancing in Kildare: "Not everyone is familiar with our style of dancing but we are finding that people love our style now that they are getting to see it. We always get complimented on our simple look. We do not wear wigs, I do not allow much makeup or tan. It is more a natural simple look that we go for and this works for us."

Morrissey was proud to note that her dancers have been invited to Bulgaria to represent Ireland in their international folk festival this June.

The Irish dance group, which depends on small fees and a lot of fundraising to continue operating, is available to perform at events, including weddings, festivals, and nursing homes. 

"We would consider anything once it gives us a chance to do what we do," Morrissey said, adding that her teenage students "love nothing more than a trip off somewhere together."

Kildare Irish Figure Dancers can be contacted on their Facebook page or via email at Kildareirishfiguredancers4@gmail.com.