Irish dance in full flight reels in online views

A photo of an Irish dancer who stepped off a tour bus at Ladies View, Killarney, and broke into a spontaneous slip-jig has attracted over 22,000 hits on Facebook.

The picture of Shauna Rock, 18, in mid-air seemingly thousands of feet over the Lakes of Killarney was snapped by her mother. The viewing point is named after the ladies in the retinue of Queen Victoria during her 1861 visit to Killarney.

Shauna, from Swords, is competing at the Comdháil World Irish Dance Championships and had been on a tour of the Ring of Kerry with her mother and other dancers and relatives when they took a break at the viewing point.

“She just got out and started doing a bit of practice and I took the photo,” said her mother, Majella O’Dwyer.

“If you have an Irish dancer in the house, you can expect that wherever they go, they dance. Even in the shops.”

Shauna has been dancing since the age of five and she is taking part in a number of competitions including the slip jig, the jig, and set dancing from tomorrow.

She sent the picture to Radio Kerry, which put it up on Facebook.

Meanwhile, over 5,000 competitors are in Killarney for the event, from across the country, Britain, other parts of Europe and the US.

Megan Colville, 14, from Prosperous in Co Kildare, said at school she and other girls keep quite about their dancing passion: “They just don’t get it. They don’t get why we do it... But, it’s my life.”

A mini Puck Fair has set up in the events centre conference hall of the hotel, with glittering hair slides, diamond-studded socks and perfectly-coiffed wigs.

Patrick O’Donoghue managing director of Killarney Convention Centre said the competition is worth €2.5m to the local economy.