Dancing down the generations with the 'Flying Ferry's'

Derry Feis is 101 years old this Easter. To celebrate the turning of its second century, Derry Now will feature a weekly interview with some of the incredibly talented stalwarts of this unique cultural event. 

In Helena Cregan (née Ferry) and her sister Bridie Hamilton (née Ferry), Feis Footlights definitely kept the good wine until the last. Their craic was 90 and their reminiscences priceless.

(Dare I say it, Derry really needs a digital archive to record the precious memories of people like the ‘Ferry Fliers’ who enriched our social and cultural history beyond measure.)

Some members of the fantastic Derry dancing Ferry family.

Never a truer word was spoken. 

When Bridie, Betty and Maeve Ferry walked into the first post-pandemic Ulster’s [Irish Dancing Championships] in Lisburn, they were warmly greeted by Irish dancing teacher Janet Coyle from Clonmany, who danced for Buncrana’s Dinny McLaughlin.
Said Janet: “I know it’s going to be a good Ulster when I see the three Ferry’s coming!”

“You just couldn’t wait till the Derry Feis came round,” said Helena. “The atmosphere was absolutely amazing.”
Following Helena’s mother Rose’s death in her early 50s, it was her sister Bridie who took all the Ferry’s to Feis Dhoire Cholmcille. 

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Helena recalled: “Bridie was the one who made all our feis frocks. We just loved Derry Feis because all of our aunts and your uncles, my mammy’s brothers and sisters, would have been there.

“My Uncle Dan (McLaughlin), who was a well known dancer in his day; my Aunt Patricia (Leppard), Aunt Vera (Toland), Aunt Kathleen (Deeney), Aunt Anna (McLaughlin), Uncle Con, who was there constantly, and, of course, my Aunt Mary McLaughlin, the Irish dancing teacher. Mary was the one who would have nipped you on your cheeks before you went on the stage,” laughed Helena, and told you to go on and dance your best. They all went to Brendan DeGlin.”

Coco the Clown meeting Mary McLaughlin's whole Irish dancing class.

Helena said everybody was at Derry Feis. “I don’t think we’ll ever see the likes of it again.”

“One of my best memories of Derry Feis was the year my Uncle Don (O’Doherty), Aunt Mary’s husband, wrote a set dance called ‘The Storyteller’. I think it was in the 1980s.

The Ferry family with their mother Rose in the centre.

“Aisling O’Donnell danced with Aunt Mary and she went up to dance and, I’m not joking, you would have heard a pin drop. Aisling’s uncle was Eugene O’Donnell. I have never heard the Guildhall as silent in all my life but when Aisling finished, the whole place erupted and she won the competition. I think that was the first big championship that she ever won.

“In those days the dancers had to sit on the steps at the back of the Guildhall stage and you were a nervous wreck.I wasn’t a bad dancer. I was always in the mix in the medals but team dancing was our thing.

“I was five when I started dancing. Once you could walk in our house, that was you,  you were going to Irish Dancing,” said Helena.

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The youngest of the Ferry’s, Helena remembered hearing the story of all the children in the family being left to the bus stop in Creggan, to get a bus to Irish dancing classes with her Aunt Mary, in a wee hall beside St Columb’s Hall. 

Helena added: “Mary was famous for her teams. Her lines were immaculate. As I danced on, because my brothers all danced in the teams and they were All Ireland Champions and the Derry Feis Champions, I moved into their team when I was 18. That is when I thought I had really made it.

“My brothers were: Joe, Seamus, Sean, Donal, Brian, Declan Eugene and Liam and my sisters were: Bridie, Betty, Maeve, Carmel, Patricia, Veronica, and we all did Irish dancing. Bridie’s husband, Laurence Hamilton was another brilliant dancer. 

“They danced ‘The Flight of the Earls’, which was also written by my Aunt Mary. I remember dancing with Marie Crawley, Ian McKinney, Giovanna McKinney and Mairead Coyle and, I think, Hilary Kelly. 

Ardnashee choir to hit the right note at Derry Feis

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“My Daddy, Willie, worked in The Rito chip shop. He never went to a feis, except once. There was a retired dancers competition in Derry Feis and we went in for it. We called ourselves the ‘Ferry Fliers’ and we danced the ‘Trip to the Cottage’ and we won. They got Daddy up onto the stage and they presented him with the trophy. Then he disappeared and we didn’t know where he was. We eventually found him, sitting down stairs with the trophy, all lured,” smiled Helena.

The Ferry’s also danced the ‘Flight of the Earls’ on RTÉ’s ‘Late, Late Show’ in the Gay Byrne days. 

Helena retired from Irish dancing when she was 20. But, the Ferry connection is still dancing strong.

Helena said: “Now we have the nieces and the nephews all dancing. 

The Ferry family dancers.

“I actually have a great nephew, our Eugene’s grandson, Jack Haver (U11), dancing, and a great great niece, Ria McMenamin (U7). They dance for the McCloskey-McCafferty Academy of Irish Dance. Ria’s mammy is Témair McMenamin, who was also an Irish dancer. She used to dance for Aunt Mary too. Ria is Bridie’s great great granddaughter. Her brother Theo (4) recently danced for the first time at a feis in Galway. My granddaughter, Lucy Hamilton, will also be dancing at Derry Feis this year .

“My niece, Finola Ferry, our Joe’s daughter, also teaches Irish dancing in Letterkenny in the Ferry Academy of Irish Dance. It has just gone down the generations.”

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Bridie, a talented Sean Dolan’s camog in her younger days as well as a netballer, fondly remembered her Mammy, Rose, making bows for the girls’ hair when they were dancing in feiseanna. 

“Mammy used yards of nylon net to make bows,” said Bridie. “I would have made the feis frocks and embroidered them too. When Helena won her first solo dance, I had made her frock. It was blue and deep burgundy. We put the win down to her new dress.

Helena and her twin brother Brian dancing a two-hand reel.

“I remember going to Irish dancing classes with my Aunt Mary in the Band Shed in Lecky Road. We lived in Foster’s Terrace at the time, before we moved to Creggan. I left dancing when I was 14 but I remember singing in Derry Feis too, with James MacCafferty. Our nephew, Andrew Ferry, later sang with Mr MacCafferty’s daughter, Una O’Somachain and did very well in Derry Feis too.

“Back in the day, during that week, we never went home after the dancing finished up in St Columb’s Hall. You would have run over to the Guildhall to get your seat for the Friday night Championships and for a cup of tea and a Doherty’s bun,” said Bridie. 

Bridie’s son, Sean, and her daughter, Louise, also became Irish dancers. 

Laughing Bridie said: “Louise got a second in Ulster and said, ‘That’s me done.’”