Niamh had been a lovely child to teach when she first started dancing in my classes. She then really impressed me in her adult life, both on a personal and professional level. She was always very quiet and serious and totally committed to her dancing and to the show. She was a perfectionist in the way she trained and prepared for her performance.
I never remember Niamh getting injured and that’s because she did everything by the book, including ‘Marie’s warm-up exercises’.
While she was working in Las Vegas a vacancy for a dance captain came up, and I then appointed Niamh to that position. She did a great job. She was very good with the girls in the company and kept in regular contact to update me when I was back in England.
In 2005, Michael launched a new dance show called Celtic Tiger, which explored the history of the Irish people and Irish emigration to America through dance. It was my favourite show because I particularly love the dance numbers in it. Even today I still put on the Celtic Tiger DVD and I enjoy watching it.
When we were starting up Celtic Tiger I asked Niamh to be the dance captain and to work alongside me. I was staying in Dublin’s Gresham Hotel during that period. After a long, hard day of rehearsals, Niamh and a couple of the other girls would come back at night to my room and we’d work on the new dance numbers for the next day.
Niamh always gave her time above and beyond the call of duty.
When Michael and Niamh started dating it didn’t come as a big surprise to me. I knew that Niamh adored Michael and I could see the chemistry between them. And when the romance finally blossomed it was lovely to watch it develop and grow.
In October, 2006, Michael and Niamh were married at the local church near his palatial home in Fermoy, Co. Cork. It really was like the wedding of a prince and princess that day with all the locals lining the streets of the town and giving the couple a big warm welcome as they arrived. There was cheering and clapping from the gathering, with people standing on walls and fences and hanging out of windows to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom.
Even the notorious Irish weather blessed the happy couple with sunshine for their big day.
Michael and his brother, Patrick, arrived at the church in a BMW convertible with the roof down. The groom’s beaming smile left no one in doubt about his joy at marrying Niamh.
The church ceremony was so beautiful and understated, and I had the honour of doing one of the readings.
Afterwards, Michael and Niamh walked down the aisle and out into the sunshine as man and wife to more loud cheers and shouts of good wishes from the waiting crowd.
Then it was back to Michael’s (and now Niamh’s) magnificent mansion, Castlehyde, which had once been the ancestral home of Ireland’s first president, Douglas Hyde. Michael had lovingly restored the house to its former glory, and he threw open the doors to all the wedding guests on that special day.
The celebrations in Castlehyde were just like a family gathering, as guests roamed through the halls and rooms, mingling and chatting, and enjoying lovely food, wine and Guinness on tap.
And, in typical Irish fashion, the party continued into the early hours of the morning with a great music session headed up by none other than Irish traditional supergroup The Chieftains, with Michael playing the flute in the middle of them.
Later, Michael and Niamh would be blessed with the birth of their son, Michael Jnr.
A truly happy ending to their lives in dancing.
* * *
I will never leave Irish dancing while blood still runs through my veins. And it seems that Irish dancing doesn’t want to leave me. After twenty years, I have been lured back into the world of competitive dancing as a teacher with the London-based school, Céim Óir, run by my friend Hilary Joyce-Owens.
Hilary comes from the west of Ireland – born in Mayo, she grew up in Galway, but if both counties were in an All-Ireland final she’d be shouting for Mayo! – and I first came in contact with her when she was about thirteen years old.
I remember judging Hilary in a competition held in Galway at that time and she really impressed me. For some reason, her name, Hilary Joyce, stuck in my head and I never forgot it. Then she just seemed to disappear off the scene. For years after I would be looking out for this kid who had impressed me, but she didn’t seem to be around.
It transpired that Hilary had emigrated to England after finishing her education and had continued her Irish dancing with a London-based school.
She later took her Irish dancing teacher’s exam and opened up her own school, Céim Óir, which brought me into contact with her again. I became friendly with her, but only casually. We’d exchange pleasantries and small talk whenever we’d meet on the scene.
After Lord of the Dance was launched I found myself in London a lot of the time, and Hilary would come to the shows. Then, when she heard that I had been diagnosed with cancer, she called me up and offered to help in any way she could.
As I mentioned earlier, Hilary was one of the people who supported me when I was rehearsing a new Lord of the Dance troupe in London shortly after I had my mastectomy. It was during this time that our friendship deepened and from then on we were in touch all the time.
When I first talked about stepping back from my work with Lord of the Dance, Hilary asked if I would be interested in doing some mentoring with the young dancers at her Céim Óir school. I didn’t immediately commit to anything. Later, when I was mulling it over, I wasn’t sure that I could go back into competitive dancing again and cope with the pressures and emotions that go with the scene.
So I put it on the long finger.
In 2014 I asked Hilary if she would work with me on the creation of a big production for the opening ceremony of the World Championships in London that year. I wanted to do something that had never been done before and make it exciting and entertaining for everyone.
My vision was for a showpiece that would have the wow factor, and Hilary jumped on board to help me bring it to life.
Hilary’s husband, Barry, and his band, The Main Attraction, are one of the top groups in the world of corporate entertainment on the Irish circuit in Britain. Barry, who originally comes from Belfast, agreed to be the musical director for the production, creating the appropriate tunes for the different elements of the show.
I laid out a blueprint for the event, and then the next step was to get all the London dancers, and especially the teachers and adjudicators, to participate in the show. I was thrilled with the response. They all immediately jumped in with great enthusiasm.
We had intended our show-style opening ceremony to be a surprise, but, of course, with dancers and teachers involved it was impossible to get them to hold their whist, as we say, and the word got out.
On opening day, there was a huge buzz around the place and the auditorium was packed to capacity, with a queue of people outside the door hoping for individuals to give up their seats.
There were over sixty nations participating in the World Championships, so we had a parade of flags with the southern dancers each representing a nation. Barry’s music was the soundtrack to that display, with a suitable tune for each country. I had also asked Barry to write and record an anthem for those World Championships, and that was played every day throughout that marvellous week.
It was also a great honour to have the participation of Michael Flatley and his wife, Niamh, in the opening ceremony. Their presence created a big buzz and the crowd just loved them.
Brian McEnteggart, a former Lord of the Dance dancer, composed a hilarious monologue on the World Championships, which was recited during the evening’s entertainment by Francis Curley.
The other big hits on the night included a light-hearted parody sketch with a London theme, a pledge of allegiance for dancers, adjudicators and musicians, and a show-style dance performance by the younger teachers.
They brought the house down.
That was April 2014, and the following month I decided to start working with Hilary in her Céim Óir classes aft
er she again asked me if I would be interested in coming in the odd time to do some mentoring. As I was living in Dorset, a couple of hours from London, I offered to do two days with Céim Óir every fortnight.
Hilary and I get on so well. It’s like we’ve known each other all our lives. She is a beautiful young woman in every sense: she’s very pretty with blonde hair, hazel eyes and a vivacious personality. I liked her ethics and the way she ran her classes. She’s a great organiser with attention to detail and she has a natural rapport with young people.
But, despite our great relationship, I have to admit that I was very apprehensive about going back into the competitive world after twenty years away from it working on the international stage with Lord of the Dance and all of Michael Flatley’s spin-off shows.
However, it was too big a challenge to turn down, so I stepped back into the inferno. And I wasn’t long in the door of Céim Óir when I felt right at home. I quickly became inspired by the dedication of the pupils and their parents and gradually I got more and more connected, involved and attached to the youngsters – and the two days multiplied.
Every teacher and dancer and class’s aim is to come home from the World Championships with as many globes as possible. At the 2015 championships in Montreal our Céim Óir dancers surprised themselves. They won their first céilí team championship, which meant that the dancers received the coveted globes and were placed on the podiums. Hilary’s own daughter, Ella Owens, came third, and a young lad called Josh Ruddock won second place in the men’s.
That created so much excitement in Céim Óir that all of the dancers wanted to do the journey for the 2016 World Championships in Glasgow, to see how far they could go. Sarah Cooney-Nutley was a senior dancer in her last year and her determination, dedication, commitment and loyalty were so infectious that I became totally engrossed in working with her and the rest of the dancers over the year.
They were enjoying it and I was enjoying it.
It was just so exciting.
And I got the fire in my belly again.
The world of competitive dancing is a roller coaster of highs and lows. It’s so subjective in competition that there are going to be down days as well as up days. I always tell dancers that they can’t expect to go through the World Championships on either total highs or total lows.
Our week at the 2016 World Championships started off on a great high. Ella Owens got a second place, which was a huge personal achievement to move up into that position over the year. The middle of the week brought some lows, but then on Easter Sunday we were back on top of the roller coaster, with the two céilí teams both taking globes.
Then came the ultimate high when Josh Ruddock achieved his dream of making the number one spot.
Looking at the beaming face of Josh up on the winner’s podium was such an emotional experience for me.
I never expected to be back on stage as one of the teachers of a new World Champion after a break of twenty years … and at the age of seventy!
* * *
In my seventieth year I’m on the move again, relocating from the gorgeous Poole suburb of Canford Cliffs to an apartment in a lovely little town called Gerrards Cross.
There are several reasons for this latest upheaval in our lives, but first let me go back to Canford Cliffs, the truly stunning area where Mike and I set up home together after we got married.
When we lived in Three Legged Cross we’d often take a scenic drive out that way, up along the eastern edge of Poole Harbour. Canford Cliffs is a sleepy area with lovely little tree-lined roads and beautiful homes. It is linked to Sandbanks, a peninsula of just half a square mile of golden sand that is one of the most expensive areas in the world to buy a house.
Sandbanks has only seventy or so homes around the edge of the peninsula, so they are the most sought-after. And the forty or so houses that have direct access to Poole Harbour go for serious money. I’ve seen price tags of £13 million!
Sandbanks is not a haunt of A-list actors or pop stars, but more of football managers, including Harry Redknapp.
With those kind of prices, Sandbanks was not for us, but Canford Cliffs won our hearts. The area was originally designed to be residential, with a church and village hall, but few commercial buildings. The Canford Cliffs Society still works to preserve those goals, so there are few businesses and no industry in the area.
After we got married, Mike sold his cottage and we were then living together in my house next door. One weekend when Mike was away I took a drive around Canford Cliffs with my nephew-in-law Len and I started admiring houses, including a row of four similar new ones on a little road quite close to the sea.
When Mike came home, I suggested that we should go and have a look around that area together to see if there was anything we both fancied.
We then took a trip around Canford Cliffs, checking out what was on offer, but not spotting anything suitable that we could agree on. Before going home I remembered the row of new houses I had seen with Len, so Mike agreed to call by, although I think his patience was well on the way to running out at this stage.
The four houses were slightly different in size, and I immediately fell in love with one of them. However, when we contacted the estate agent I was disappointed to learn that it had already been sold. We were then told that the house at the end, which was the biggest one on the row, was still available.
We got a viewing and when we walked through the door it was still a work in progress. A lot of the interior hadn’t been completed, but we both loved it. A house chooses you, as they say. Before we left we were doing a deal with the estate agent.
And soon after that our home at Three Legged Cross went on the market.
We settled into Canford Cliffs as if it had always been a part of our lives. As we expected, it was a heavenly place to live. We both realised how fortunate we were to have such a good life in that part of the world.
Apart from our lovely home, the main attraction for both of us was our proximity to the sea, which was just a short stroll down the hill from our house. There is a beautiful sandy beach with a great prom for long walks. We really were in heaven.
As time slipped by, Mike and I both established great new friendships with people in the area. Our home on the hill played host to many an enjoyable and memorable dinner party. It was also in Canford Cliffs that Mike came into his own as the king of the barbeque. He always enjoyed surprising our guests with new barbeque recipes on balmy summer evenings.
I know I can depend on Mike to provide a top-class meal whenever we have a gathering. I remember when our friends Chris Thomas and Eve Went were celebrating their sixtieth birthdays, a gang of us went off together to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean for a week of fun. Sue and her husband, Chris, have a fabulous home sitting right on the beach in that idyllic part of the world.
It was decided that each guest would take turns to do a daily lunch throughout the week. Naturally it was Mike who stepped up to the challenge in our couple and he cooked one of his signature dishes, paella. Beforehand, Mike took me on an expedition to the local market to stock up on all the essential items that go into paella. He’s meticulous about sourcing his ingredients – I suppose that’s the engineer in him. Mike does a mean paella that guests just love; even those who are not fans of that dish seldom resist the one that my husband makes.
When Mike celebrated his seventieth birthday three years ago, I offered him the choice of a Rolex watch or an outdoor state-of-the-art barbeque kitchen for his present. With his passion for outdoor cooking, Mike opted for the kitchen. And when it arrived he was like a child with a new toy on Christmas morning. Our families and friends have ever since enjoyed the benefits of that gift.
So why take the major decision to move from our lovely village of Canford Cliffs at this stage of our lives? It is for a combination of reasons.
Firstly, we’re getting on in years, so we felt it was time to downsize from our large, two-storey house and move to more manageable
apartment living.
A tragic accident had also unsettled us in the last couple of years when our next-door neighbour died after falling down her stairs. That scared us, so the stairs were becoming an issue, particularly as Mike has arthritis.
Ultimately, where you live is defined by the people in your life, rather than bricks and mortar. In the last couple of years a lot of our close friends moved on from Canford Cliffs, so that also had a bearing on it.
But, as with everything in my entire life, the main reason is to do with Irish dancing. I am thoroughly enjoying working with Hilary and her dancers and teachers in Céim Óir, and it made more sense to be based in London rather than doing the two-hour commutes, particularly as I used to drive home on my own at night.
Once the decision was made, Mike immediately set about finding a suitable location and apartment. He really is a very proactive person, and age certainly hasn’t slowed him down. And, of course, Mike has been used to moving home all his life, so it’s not the least bit daunting for him.
He never gets emotionally attached to a house.
Before I had time to draw my breath, Mike had found us an ideal apartment in Gerrards Cross, a town which spans the foothills of the Chiltern Hills and land on the right bank of the River Misbourne. Gerrards Cross has a close association with popular culture. Stanley Kubrick filmed some of the exteriors of his 1962 film, Lolita, in the town. St Hubert’s House there has been used as a filming location for several TV series, including Inspector Morse and The Professionals.
For Mike and me, Gerrards Cross ticks all the boxes for our future plans. Our apartment is a short walk to the local train station, and the train journey into the centre of London is just eighteen minutes. We also plan to to spend more time abroad in sunny climes, and Heathrow Airport is just a fifteen-minute drive away.
Since moving into the apartment we have started to turn it into our home. It’s a big change in terms of reduced space, but we are happy that we’ve made the right decision. We both fell in love with the apartment and the location on our first visit one weekend. We were informed that there was a lot of interest in it from other parties, so we bought it on the spot.
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