* * *
As well as running the dancing classes, I didn’t let my qualification as a gym instructor go to waste. I got some work in a local gym, but gradually the dancing took over full-time as my earnings grew.
The Marie Duffy School of Dancing opened in 1986 in Claude Hall, Drumcondra, where one of the parents had a connection. It had a wooden floor and a small stage, which was perfect for my needs. I had considered different names for my school. But my brother Seamas was there to steer me in the right direction.
‘Why are you ashamed of your own name?’ Seamas asked.
‘I’m not!’ I said indignantly.
‘Well, The Marie Duffy School of Dancing it is then,’ he declared.
The first test of The Marie Duffy School of Dancing came later that year at the World Championships, which were held in Cork. My winners over the previous couple of decades had been under the Inis Ealga flag. But now I was out on my own, flying my own flag, so it was my reputation as a dance teacher on the line. I was confident about my solo dancers, and they didn’t disappoint. In fact, they performed beyond my expectations. When the results came in, I had three new world champions up on the podium, and none of my dancers finished lower than fourth or fifth place.
My biggest worry was the figure choreography category, because there were usually sixteen dancers in the group, and I only had fourteen. My other team was an eight-hand and they had been winners. I decided to have a go anyway to show people what I could do, and I organised the figure choreography in a style that would hide the missing members of the dance troupe.
I had never been so nervous in the build-up to a competition, not even when I was performing myself. I was so conscious of the fact that there were a lot of people, including everyone from Inis Ealga, waiting curiously to see what I was going to produce.
An eerie silence fell over the venue when the troupe came out on stage. I had never experienced anything like it. My heart was pounding as they performed, but I felt it went well.
Then there was the agonising wait for the results to come in. There were seven adjudicators, so it could go either way.
Finally the announcement came through, with the revelation that six of the judges had given us a first, making it a really convincing win. I was in tears, because this was a massive result for my school, a huge relief, and the start of a great new adventure.
* * *
A couple of weeks later, offers to do workshops in North America started arriving at my door. Some were from people and schools I had worked with through Inis Ealga, others were new.
I was thrilled.
This was an affirmation of my reputation in the world of Irish dancing. When I was with Inis Ealga, I’d often wonder if it was the school’s reputation that had opened those doors for me in the States and Canada. To get schools across the Atlantic now sending me personal offers answered that question for me – and I’m the type of person who needs reassurance every now and then.
So my jet-setting career resumed with The Marie Duffy School. I loved the fact that those summer trips to America and Canada allowed me to experience life in other parts of the world.
‘Man, this is living!’ as the Americans would say.
That’s how I felt about it. They were all-expenses-covered trips and I was paid a top rate by the hour. I lived with the people who ran the schools, which kept the expenses down and was much nicer than staying in hotels. It was so enjoyable, the families were great company and they all had lovely homes. And if I was doing a couple of workshops over the summer I’d split the air fares between the schools, which were located in different parts of America.
Peter Smith from New Jersey was one of the first people who invited me over to give workshops in his school. When I went over I could see straight away the main problem in his school: there was no order or discipline.
Lord rest him, Peter has now passed on, but the first night I arrived at his class I thought it was like New York’s Grand Central Station. People were walking around, kids were dancing, parents were talking in little groups and there was no proper focus. I wanted to run away.
Peter obviously noticed the expression of alarm on my face.
‘What’s wrong, Marie?’ he asked.
‘The first thing I’m going to have to do is set down a routine here,’ I explained.
‘That’s why I brought you here, Marie,’ he said.
‘There may be some problems with the parents, Peter,’ I warned.
‘Leave that to me,’ he said firmly.
The first rule I introduced was to exclude parents from the class. When you have parents there, the dancers are distracted. Sometimes when you give an instruction, their eyes go to the parents. So the parents had to go, which didn’t go down too well with them. The school was in Elizabeth city in New Jersey and it wasn’t one of the best neighbourhoods. There were no coffee shops or facilities like that nearby where the parents could hang out, but I felt that wasn’t my problem.
‘I don’t care where they go, but they’re not staying here,’ I insisted to Peter.
So when that was sorted, I called the class to order and told the young American kids that while we were working nobody was to wander around the hall, and there was to be no talking. I could be the strict schoolmistress when I needed to be.
I ran a tight ship, but then that’s how I got results. And Peter Smith, his pupils and their parents saw the results over the next few years when they became the top school there.
Then I went on to Maureen Hall in Denver, Colorado. Maureen had been in the McTaggart school in Cork before she emigrated. We really hit it off at the workshops. And when the work was done, we’d go on shopping sprees together, as us ladies do. I also worked with the Julie Showalter School in Chicago.
I particularly enjoyed the social aspect to my time doing workshops in America. There were always lots of gatherings and sessions in different houses. Teacher and adjudicator Patsy McLoughlin’s home in New Jersey was often the scene of some great music and craic. Patsy’s husband Chris had a fabulous voice, so he would be singing all the great Irish songs of love and family and emigration, with the wines and beers flying to add to the merriment.
It was great fun.
My schools kept growing, with requests coming in from all over North America from teachers like Ann Richens, Mary McGing, Helen Gannon, Patricia Kennelly and the Trinity School, Chicago and the Healys.
Then Australia opened up to me. I had done workshops there for Cathie Cosgriff and Liz Finn Howe when I was in Inis Ealga, so that established the contacts. After hearing that I had my own school, Cathie asked me over to teach at her school in Melbourne, and I had similar requests from Liz, and from Jackie Miller in Adelaide.
I continued doing the workshops with Cathie in Melbourne, right up to the time I joined Michael Flatley when he started work on Lord of the Dance. Cathie would also regularly come to this side of the world and we developed a lifelong friendship. She even joined me when I celebrated my seventieth birthday with family and friends in December 2015, at Tylney Hall Hotel in Hampshire, England.
I enjoyed my regular visits to Melbourne and it was rewarding to see the Cosgriff school grow and grow into one of Australia’s top schools, winning all the categories at the Australian championships in solos, céilí and figure choreography; and also seeing one of her dancers, Conor Hayes, starting out as a young lad and growing up to win the world’s men’s championship. Conor went on to become a lead dancer in Riverdance. What was so gratifying about doing continuous workshops was witnessing the development of the dancers and the school and making lifelong friends.
The Marie Duffy School had now gone international – much to the delight and pride of my mother.
Me and My Mum
Mother and I shared some very happy years together after we bought the bungalow in Kinsealy. We were great company for each other.
Although I’d leave her behind when I’d go off to America every summer to do my workshops, I always set
aside a week for us to have a holiday together in some exotic location when I returned. We’d go to the south of Spain, and Greece was another of her favourite places in the sun. There were some wonderful holidays together in Ireland as well.
Mum was a big fan of Wicklow, or ‘The Garden of Ireland’ as that county is known because of its breathtaking beauty. She loved nothing more than a drive around the gorgeous Wicklow countryside in my little car, crawling up narrow, winding mountain roads and rolling slowly down into picturesque valleys, taking in the stunning vistas and booking into quaint hotels along the way.
It was a lovely time in our lives and I’d never seen Mum happier.
My school continued to flourish, and Mum took an active interest in it, getting to know all the pupils and following their progress in competitions. I kept the numbers small because I wanted to give each dancer equal attention and coaching to help them work to their strengths. I tailor-made dances to suit them. My aim, as always, was to produce quality dancers.
Of course, I knew that some children were never going to be great dancers. But I never turned away a child for that reason. I still took the child under my wing, and did as much as I could with them. That took time and patience. I had to be sensitive and diplomatic in those individual cases because it’s so easy to damage a child’s confidence. I gave them constructive criticism, always stressing the positive aspects of what they were doing, while letting them know gently that some steps just didn’t suit them.
It was quite tricky dealing with parents as well because, naturally, they want the best for their child, and they want their children to get the breaks in life. I had to be diplomatic in the way I handled delicate situations with the parents as well as the children.
Sometimes you’d find dancers with great natural ability and see them squander their talent because they were lazy. My experience is that the dancers who had to work hard to achieve their potential were the ones who got the best results.
But I always encouraged children, irrespective of their ability, to enjoy their dancing. It had to be fun in order for them to love it and to have the passion for it. And I firmly believe that Irish dancing is a great experience for a child in terms of developing good life skills. They learn discipline, control, how to take direction, teamwork and how to cope with the ups and downs of life, the losing as well as the winning. The children learn to conquer their fears and it builds their confidence.
And, believe me, it takes a lot of confidence to step on to a stage in front of a hall full of people.
For some, Irish dancing would become their life’s work as teachers, because they had found their vocation. Not all teachers were great champions in their own right, but champions don’t always make good teachers. Some just don’t have the patience for it. A lot of time and perseverance goes into teaching. My experience is that dancers who grew up loving it, even if they weren’t exceptional winners, often went on to run some of the best schools around the world.
Mum travelled to all the feiseanna around the country after I started my own school, spending those weekends away from home with me. Each day she’d take her seat in the venue, and you could see the excitement on her face as my dancers were performing. She was a great woman for prayer, and she’d be praying that the dancers would do well. But mostly, I think, her prayers and her rosaries were for me to get a man. I know she would have been delighted to see me find somebody because I’m sure it was on her mind that, now that she was in her eighties, time was running out for her, and she wanted to see me married before that moment arrived.
At this stage, I was nicely settled in my lifestyle and it didn’t bother me that there was no partner in my life. I had a nice group of close friends, both male and female; in fact, my best friend was a male, but it was a purely platonic relationship. So I was quite happy and had everything sorted, as I thought. And I loved the fact that my school was a great social outlet for my mother at that time, particularly as she was in the twilight years of her life.
* * *
My relationship with my mother hadn’t always been so good. Although she had been unselfish, making so many personal sacrifices to give me a top-class education and to equip me with good social skills during my childhood and teenage years, Mum then became quite needy and demanding when I was in my twenties, thirties and even my forties. As her only daughter, I was the family member she clung to for attention.
There were times when it was very difficult for me to get away from her.
I got an anonymous phone call on one occasion during the early years of my adult life, and it was a female voice on the other end saying, ‘I’ve found your mother on the street, she has collapsed.’
I recognised the disguised voice: it was Mum making the call. Her attention-seeking left me baffled.
Another time I had arranged to go with friends to the traditional horse racing festival at Leopardstown on St Stephen’s Day. On the morning of the event, Mum suddenly took ill and asked me to call an ambulance. She was rushed to hospital and I feared the worst.
A nurse, noticing how distraught I was, took me aside in the hospital later that day and told me to go home.
‘We have seen your mother get out of bed, carefully slide down the wall on to the floor and call for help. There is nothing wrong with her,’ she said.
I was absolutely shocked. It was very difficult to reconcile this bizarre behaviour with the strong, independent woman who had reared me. Sometimes the pressure of dealing with her would be so bad that I’d have to call Seamas and get him to come and rescue me. Seamas would give her a good talking-to, and then I would get the silent treatment from her for days afterwards.
When old age set in, as so often happens in the circle of life, the parent eventually becomes the child, and the child is thrust into the position of the carer. And that’s how it went with us. But she was much easier to deal with at this stage, probably because we were now living together and she had that security. And, to be fair, she was encouraging me to find myself a partner, even though I was quite happy on my own.
* * *
Coming up to her eightieth birthday, I planned a lovely family get-together to celebrate that milestone in Mum’s life. The boys came home from England, but she took a sudden turn before the celebrations and was rushed to hospital. So that birthday party never happened. This time she was genuinely ill, and we were so relieved when she recovered and returned home following a few weeks of treatment.
Two years later, Mum was back in Beaumont Hospital after collapsing at home. She was unconscious by the time she arrived at the hospital, and the medical staff told me there was a possibility she would not come out of it. I immediately contacted the family in England, and they made arrangements to come home as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, I maintained a vigil at her bedside that first night.
When my brother Brian arrived the following afternoon he saw the exhausted condition I was in. In the evening, he urged me to go home and sleep, insisting that he would stay with Mum. There had been no change in her condition either way. Kinsealy was close by, and I was so shattered at this stage that I agreed to his suggestion.
Early the next morning I woke up to the sound of my doorbell ringing. When I opened it, Brian was standing on the step. My heart jumped with fright, thinking my mother had died in the night.
‘You’re not going to belive this,’ Brian said, breaking into a smile.
‘She’s sitting up in bed having her breakfast!’
There were several serious incidents of this nature over a few years, where she would somehow bounce back from death’s door. The sad thing is, while Mum’s body was breaking down, her mind was as sharp as ever. We’d always watch the news programmes on TV together to keep ourselves up to speed on what was happening in the world. Mum was totally aware of everything that was going on in politics globally as well as at home, and she’d be giving me her own opinions on the current affairs.
If my mother was ill when any of the dancing competitions were taking
place, as happened a couple of times, I would stay with her. There would be other championships, but my mother wasn’t going to be around forever.
I never stayed to mind her out of a sense of obligation.
I wanted to be with her.
* * *
My mother was in Beaumont Hospital when the World Championships came around in Easter 1991. The city of Limerick was hosting the event that year. Mum was making a good recovery in hospital and I had no concerns about her. We discussed the World Championships, and she insisted that I should go. She had been due to leave hospital that weekend.
‘I’ll wait till you come back from Limerick,’ she said.
So that was the plan. I told her I’d be back on the Sunday night.
‘I’ll come home on Monday or Tuesday,’ Mum told me.
Although she wasn’t seriously ill or incapacitated, I arranged for a carer to be with her at the house for the following week when I would go to work.
Mum was happy with that.
I stopped by to see her in the hospital on the Saturday morning before I set off on my journey down to Limerick. She was in great spirits and she named off all the children from my school who were competing in the World Championships and asked me to give them her best wishes.
She was in such good form that I felt very comfortable leaving her for the weekend.
That Saturday evening in Limerick I met up for dinner with one of my close friends, Brendan. On the Sunday morning we went to the venue and I prepped the kids for the competition that was about to start. Then I saw Terry Gillan walking down through the hall, flanked by two members of the Gardaí in uniform. I wonder what’s wrong, I thought. Next I noticed Terry beckoning over my friend Brendan. I feared then that there had been some kind of a serious incident at the championships.
Lady of the Dance Page 7
