‘The feis was like a light that turned on for a week each year’ – Mairead Coyle

Mairead Coyle’s first recollection of her days as an Irish dancer is when she arrived at St Columb’s Hall as a little girl to begin her instruction under the late Mary McLaughlin.

It is a brief, perhaps almost fleeting memory, but nevertheless it appears, it is a poignant, strong and clear one.

“I remember going to the Little Theatre as it was then, and Mary McLaughlin standing at the big door and calling us all in as we arrived with our parents and then coming out again. She always imagined that myself and my brother John, who was there as well and who was older than me, were twins. And every week she would say to my mother, ‘are you sure they are not twins?’, as she patted us on the head as we left. So that’s my earliest memory of dancing”, Mairead laughed.

As the initial challenge of getting to grips with the fundamentals of Irish dancing were mastered over the passage of time, that achievement was rewarded by a ‘graduation’ of sorts onto the next step.

Mairead said: “Then came the excitement of getting your costume. My granny was a dress maker, and she made my first wee costume and hand embroidered it. It must have been tiny when I think about it now. And I can vaguely remember dancing in it here in St Columb’s Hall”.

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Naturally, at that early point, there may not have been any serious indication that the little girl making her first forays into performing would become one of the most talented graceful, and successful dancers Derry has ever produced. But throughout the 1970’s and as that decade progressed into the 1980’s, that is exactly what Mairead Coyle became - in the process collecting a litany of major solo and team titles including many at Feis Dhoire Cholmcille.

Mairead is no doubt that while competition at major championships such at Ulster’s and All Ireland’s were given due deference, the main emphasis on competitive success was to ensure the McLaughlin School of Irish Dancing acquitted itself with honours on home ground at Derry Feis. And as with the pursuit of success in all of life’s many challenges, preparation was the key to achievement.

“Mary McLaughlin always did extra preparation for any feis but come time for the Derry Feis you were being prepared from after Christmas really. There was extra weekend work and extra classes and even going to her house to do extra work. Irish dancing was just her life, and we were all regarded as her family in many ways. She just gave everything to dancing.

“Even though I completed the examination and I am a qualified dancing teacher, there was one reason that I thought I could never be a teacher. She gave her entire life to it, and I couldn’t have done that because I had another career, so I just felt I could never have been a good teacher because I would never have been as good as Mary”.

Mairead also spoke of the physical benefits of the ‘work’ and indeed the ‘extra work’ carried out in the dance classes at St Columb’s Hall. If taken in any way seriously, these sessions, at times lasting several hours each, were certainly not for the faint hearted.

A teenage Mairead Coyle pictured at her childhood home with some of the array of cups, trophies and medals she won in her competitive days as a dancer.

In the days before ventilation was a rigour of Health and Safety legislation and air conditioning was a technological ‘fantasy’ that Irish people only heard about in American movies, at times stopping even for a drink of water was almost frowned upon and perhaps taken as a sign that you weren’t ‘up for it’.

“We had no idea of how fit we were. It spoiled me for the rest of my life because, no amount of exercise classes that I have ever been to has ever really gone anywhere near coming close to a session with Mary McLaughlin. She just kept you dancing until you were practically falling of your feet. But you built up such stamina.

Mairead pictured with the Bridie McLaughlin Cup, one of the blue riband senior dancing competitions which is still awarded each year at Feis Dhoire Cholmcille.

“I know that there were other dancers whose teachers were a bit more relaxed about teaching them and let them do a couple of steps for each dance, and you could see that they would start to flag after that. Mary McLaughlin had us going so long that we could have gone another three or four steps before we ran out of steam. But she didn’t do anything that didn’t involve a degree of care and she was very motherly, but she used unorthodox methods shall we say,” Mairead laughed.

The preparation for Derry Feis halted after the final dancing class on Good Friday afternoon. And between that time and the arrival of Easter Monday morning, the anticipation for the events of the week ahead reached fever pitch in the minds of dancers.

“The excitement was unbelievable. The build-up to it with all the extra classes, the work on team dancing as well and solo dancing, so you had two costumes to get ready. In those days the collars of our costumes were hand crocheted lace and had to be taken off the dresses, hand washed and starched and sown back on again.

"I became a dab hand at that. Mary inspected them because they had to be pure white. We got instructions before the feis started. Then we had to decide for teams whether we were wearing headbands, rosettes or ribbons and we all had to be the same. So, you had to turn up with the right one for your hair.

"There was also the routine of polishing your shoes. Before Derry Feis you had to make sure your tap shoes were right and in those days those consisted of nails built up at the front of the shoe. You also had to make sure your pumps were blackened and shiny.

Mairead Coyle, pictured recently in the balcony at St Columb’s Hall. She fondly recalled her first day at dancing class as a little girl in The Little Theatre in the downstairs section of the Hall.

“On top of that because we were going to the feis every day and every night, you had to get your outfit, and we just couldn’t wait to get all the gear on us. I mean this was my mother’s holiday, she was off work and she spent it doing that. Consistently every year you had beautiful dresses with ankle socks, and you were freezing standing at the door of the Guildhall waiting to get in, in the evening time. It was great craic getting all that organised and then coming up to the feis”.

While Mairead gave her interview in St Columb’s Hall, she said that the fulcrum of feis week excitement arrived when she entered the “big corridor” in the city’s Guildhall for the first night each year.

“Just knowing you were going to see everybody and the people you might not have seen for a year was great. I just loved seeing the other schools, like the Kerrigan School of Dancing, the Kerr’s and the Bresnahan’s – who came from all over to the feis. The atmosphere was great,” she said.

The emphasis on team performance within the McLaughlin School was overarching. While solo dancers were given all the backing possible, once a dancer stepped on the stage to perform by themselves it was out of the teacher’s hands and essentially it was up to the individual to give the best account of themselves that they could. But being a cog in the bigger wheel of a joint performance was an entirely different matter.

"It then transcended dancing. Young dancers were unwittingly being taught life lessons of how to interact with colleagues and to do all possible not to let anyone down. It was an exercise in reliance on others and to let them know they could also rely on you.

A prizewinning team from the McLaughlin School of Irish Dancing. Pictured from the left on the back row are Majella Barr, Mairead Coyle and Michelle Gillespie. Pictured seated in the middle row are Fionnuala McLaughlin and Sinead Leppard. Pictured on the front row from the left are Donna McKinney, Stephanie Harkin and Louise McKinney.

Mairead added: “She had a great dedication to team dancing and that was a great thing about dancing then. There were so many teams, and it meant that everybody got a chance to get up and shine and get a medal and come away and say I competed at Derry Feis. Not everyone is going to win in solo competitions obviously, so it was nice to go up and get a bit of recognition, and the teams were always the best of craic.

"The were a big thing for Mary and for her school. Teams were more important to her in many respects. Her whole life and her name and reputation was with her teams.

Mairead pictured front right outside St Columb’s Hall with members of a successful McLaughlin School team.

“The feis was so important for Derry at that time, especially in my time in the 70s and 80s. There was so little, Derry was kind of grey. The Derry Feis was like a light that went on for a week in Derry.

"The singing, poetry, music and all of it – that’s what I enjoyed was the fact that you went through those doors and got a wee bit of everything. I took part in other competitions – I played the piano and sang with my schools and it was just fantastic to have it. To all those people who volunteered their time, every year for months on end to organise the feis, there couldn’t be enough recognition for them”.

Feis Dhoire Cholmcille runs this year from Tuesday 6 April to Friday 10 April at St Columb’s Hall and The Playhouse, Artillery Street. Competition details can be found at www.derryfeis.com.