Ted Kelleher: 'He dedicated his life to set dancing, singing, and farming'
Ted Kelleher, right, watches the dancing of a set. Picture: Ted O'Connell
“Small steps and tidy dancing” was Ted Kelleher’s motto, but the small step he took when he first began teaching set-dancing four decades ago proved to be a giant leap for the survival of the tradition in rural Cork.
Three generations learned to dance under the patient instruction of the Clondrohid farmer, whose heart was in his local community but who extended his infectious enthusiasm for dance to classes, competitions, and céilís across Munster and further afield.
The set-dancing community will return the compliment this month, when dancers from far and wide gather to pay tribute to Ted, who passed away earlier this year in January, aged 80, and to raise funds for the Irish Cancer Society night nurse service which cared for him in his final days.
Ted “dedicated his life to set dancing, singing, and farming”, said his son Matthew Kelleher, an accordion player well known on the set-dancing circuit. “He loved what he was doing and he had friends everywhere.” His father, he said, had “the right frame of mind” and “always made plenty of time for dancing”.
“You can get carried away with work, but he’d go dancing or singing and enjoy himself while he could,” said Matthew. “He loved meeting people and he made loads of friends through set dancing.” Age was no barrier to friendships, and many of those taught by Ted over the years, from teenagers to pensioners, joined his annual set-dancing pilgrimage by bus to the Willie Clancy festival in Milltown Malbay, Co Clare.
Among their number was Alan O’Riordan, a pupil of Ted’s since the age of 10, who after assisting his mentor in his later years, has now stepped into his shoes as set dancing teacher.
“He taught my mother and father to dance and then he taught me — and an awful lot of other dancers over the years,” said Alan.
“He would always say ‘small steps and tidy dancing’. He was never into the mad Clare battering style. It was tidy polka sets, local sets, Sliabh Luachra, the Baile Mhúirne jig, although he started doing reel sets to prepare us for céilís.” The set dancing bug had first bitten Ted in the late 1970s as part of a group which was formed in Clondrohid.
“They got together originally at John Leary’s loft in the village — an old shop alongside the church — and they used to practise upstairs, because there was no hall in Clondrohid at the time,” Matthew recalled.
“I was young and I wasn’t playing for any céilís or any kind of dancing. I used to play a bit with my uncle Mort [Kelleher] in Macroom, but when they started set dancing they used to bring me along to play for the sets, then they started going to competitions all over Munster.
“The first group he taught would be my age group and it was from then he started travelling out to Kilmurry and Canovee — he was out three or four nights a week teaching.
“All my age group, now in their mid-50s, would have learned from him going back to the early 80s,” said Matthew.
“There were lots of sets around that time — a Clondrohid set, Grenagh set, Castleisland, Boherbue, Dunmanway, and competitions were run solely for set dancing. Our houses were full of trophies.
“There were competitions held everywhere, over in Inniscarra, Donoughmore, and you could have 15 or 20 sets on a night dancing against each other.” His father, he added, “liked the traditional set and he didn’t like it too fast, whereas nowadays [music] is played very fast and he wouldn’t be a fan”.
“Feet flat to the floor, basic, that was his way. Keep the square and keep your hands at the same height.
“It isn’t an easy job to be teaching young lads to dance,” Matthew added. “You’d really want to love what you’re doing, and that’s what he lived for — music, singing, and dancing.” While Covid had called a halt to dancing, Ted’s health declined last year and his family was grateful for the night-nursing service which Matthew described as “just amazing; they’re saints”.
“You really don’t know about these people until it actually comes to your door. They depend on fundraising, so we felt [Ted] would like that we’ve done something for a great cause.”
- The Abbey Hotel in Baile Mhúirne, where Ted frequented Thursday night céilís, is the venue for a fundraising music and singing session and céilí with the Abbey Céilí Band on Saturday, November 19, 9pm
