Social dancing in Ireland has deep roots stemming back to the kitchen céilí and the traditional dancing at the crossroads to the showband era of the 1950s and 60s, where hundreds packed rural ballrooms with many cycling long distances to get to their local venue.
While interest waned towards the end of the twentieth century, the last ten years to fifteen years have seen a wave of young Irish country music stars such as Nathan Carter, Derek Ryan and West Cork’s own Effie Neil providing a soundtrack for a new generation to hit the dancefloor.
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In rural areas where social outlets can be limited outside of sports and pubs, social dancing brings everyone together from teenagers, to young adults to retirees.
There’s also the added fitness benefits, jiving is one of the best forms of continuous, high-cardio exercise.
With the rise in jiving, dance workshops have popped up across the country, resulting in a number of thriving local businesses.
Caitriona O’Sullivan and Deirdre O’Sullivan run Beara Shimmy Shakers and host a very popular monthly dance night.Caitriona O’Sullivan and Deirdre O’Sullivan run Beara Shimmy Shakers who hold monthly dance nights at the Berehaven Golf Club just outside Castletownbere, Caitriona said their group which has been running for the last four years initially came about when they realised people wanted to dance but didn’t know all the dances.
“We held some dance classes locally, and it was really popular, but we realised there was no point in learning to dance if you had nowhere to actually go dancing.
We’re really grateful to have the space at Berehaven Golf Club, so now we hold a dance night on the second Sunday of the month.”
Caitriona said they have a big mix in ages attending. “We could have young children, teens and an older group.
It’s always a great night out.”
In such a rural area as the Beara Peninsula, Caitriona thinks that a social outlet such as dancing is vital. “People really look forward to the Beara Shimmy Shakers night every month especially in the winter months, they make the effort to get out of the house and they get a real buzz out of the night, it’s something to look forward to every month.”
Beara Shimmy Shakers also hold themed nights throughout the year at Valentines and Christmas and every June the group travels to Bere Island for an afternoon of dancing.
The group are constantly encouraging new people to join in. “Once people realise their friends and neighbours are also going it’s more of an incentive, there’s always a real feel good factor with our dance nights.”
Due to the increasing popularity of social dancing, Katie Shanahan from Leap who runs the Dance with Katie dance school in Dunmanway left her permanent job in marketing to concentrate fully on her dance school. “In the space of 12 months its gone insane, jiving in particular has really taken off and especially among young people.”
Katie has a background in traditional Irish dancing, and set up her dance school 10 years ago, teaching in venues throughout West Cork, and now, following numerous requests she also teaches jiving.
“There has always been a big jiving culture in Donegal and the surrounding areas, children learn to jive in school there, whereas in the south of the country we’ve always learnt Irish dancing at school.”
She also attributes the loss of nightclubs in rural towns to the upsurge in social dance and jiving.
“There isn’t too many places for the younger age group to socialise and make friends. Previously there could be only about four or five people in their teens at social dances, now it’s taken off so much that we could have forty to fifty at dances, and there’s a great online community with group chats asking where the next dance is.”
One of the best things about social dancing says Katie, is the inter-generational mix. “Age really doesn’t matter, it’s funny because in the dancing world, you could have friends who are either 10 years older or 10 years younger than you and it really doesn’t matter.
Katie also believes social dance is vital for mental health, “in rural areas there can be a lot of older people living on their own, and even if they don’t always want to get up and dance, just getting out of the house to come along and watch the dancing is a good step.”
Katie outlined how recently she spoke to one West Cork lady who said that with her family grown up and her husband working abroad a lot she was feeling lonely, and was considering moving to the city. “She signed up for my dance classes and enjoyed it so much that she now meets up with a group to go dancing locally and also went on a dancing holiday to Spain with a group and told me that dancing has given her a new lease of life that she’s not selling her house now and is staying in the local area.”
Katie says she also knows of a few couples who have met because of dancing, proving that the ballroom of romance is still going strong!
See Beara Shimmy Shakers on Facebook and Dance with Katie on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
This article was featured in our West Cork Farming 2026 magazine – you can read the full magazine here!
