A GROUP of young dancers at a local Irish dance school are preparing to take the stage at the prestigious World Championships.
With months of rigorous training and unwavering commitment, these dancers are not just aiming for medals; they are striving to honour their roots and share the joy of their art with the world.
Rinceoiri Ceolmhar Irish Dance School is a cross border dance school with classes taking place in both Enniskillen and Cavan.
“The group are a mixture of kids from across Fermanagh and Cavan and they all train in Enniskillen and Templeport in Cavan three or four times a week, they work incredibly hard, they are very very dedicated they not only train in class, they practice at home, they do strength and conditioning so they are extremely dedicated for their age,” explained dance teacher Clare McDermott.
“The group that is going to the world championships, we have 16 dancers attending, there is two eight hands and within that we have two girls who are going to compete in the solo competitions as well, one group is under 11 and one group is under 16, and our two soloists are under 12 and 14,” she added.
Clare and the rest of the teaching team are incredibly proud of all the hard work that the dancers continuously put in.
“I am incredibly proud, the world championships is the highest level that anybody can get to so it is a huge achievement for the dancers to be attending, whatever the results we are incredibly proud of their dedication, they are teenagers and they are so dedicated, they come to class every week, the sacrifices that must be made to compete at this level are quite a lot,” she said.
Niamh Breen and Sophia Bradley are the two dancers who will be performing solos at the competition and they are excited to be attending.
“I love dancing, it is my favourite thing to do. The world championships competition is in April and I am very excited to be going and I have put in a lot of hard work to get there.” said Niamh.
“I am very excited about going to the world championships, I feel really good to be competing at the world championships and I feel that I am a good dancer to be competing at that level” added Sophia.
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