Introduction 

A general background by Catherine Foley to the step-dance material here, which is taken from Catherine's DVD, Stór Damhsa: Irish Traditional Solo Set Dances and Step Dances: Performances and Tutorials, Catherine Foley (2015). Copyright Catherine Foley (2015) Unauthorised copying and broadcasting is prohibited. All rights reserved.
Catherine Foley is Emeritus Senior Lecturer in Ethnochoreology at The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland. During her time at the Academy, Catherine was founding course director of both the MA in Ethnochoreology (1996-2019) and the MA in Irish Traditional Dance Performance programmes (1999-2014). She is Founding Director of The National Dance Archive of Ireland, Founding Chair of Dance Research Forum Ireland, an elected Chair of the ICTM’s Study Group on Ethnochoreology, and an elected member of the ICTM's executive board. Catherine has published extensively, including two monographs, Irish Traditional Step Dancing in North Kerry (2012) and Step Dancing in Ireland: Culture and History (2013). She has also published in international scholarly journals including Dance Research Journal, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Dance Research, Research in Dance Education, and New Hibernia Review.
Catherine is also dancer and a musician. She trained in competitive Irish dance from a young age with Peggy McTeggart Cork. She later completed a TCRG certification in Irish dance with An Comhdháil (1977), and went on to complete the first PhD on Irish dancing in the world on "Irish Traditional Step Dancing in North Kerry: A Contextual and Structural Analysis" at Laban at University of London's Goldsmith's College. She completed a B.Mus. degree under Aloys Fleischmann at University College Cork (1977), a Higher Diploma in Education (HDE Music; 1978) also at University College Cork, a postgraduate Diploma in teaching the Irish language (TTG; 1984), and an Associate in Acting Diploma with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA; 1984). Catherine has performed with musicians such as Micheal Ó Súilleabháin and The Chieftains, and performed for President Clinton on his visit to Ireland in 1998. Catherine has provided dance workshops in the United States, different countries in Europe, and elsewhere and has adjudicated the sean nós dance competitions at the national Oireachtas on numerous occasions. She produced her solo dance DVD, Stór Damhsa: Irish Traditional Solo Set Dance and Step Dances, in 2015, while her commissioned new choreography - The Sionna Set Dance, was published as a multimedia educational package in 2007. Catherine has also sat on various awards panels including the Society of Ethnomusicology’s Nadia and Nicholas Nahumck Fellowship Committee Awards Panel, and the Arts Council of Ireland.
Catherine taught as a secondary school teacher in Baile Mhúirne in the West Cork Gaeltacht (1978-1984). During this time, she was invited to work during the summer months as a collector of Irish traditional Music, Song, and Dance for Muckross House, Killarney, Co. Kerry. Having been brought up in an Irish traditional music and dance background, and being an Irish traditional musician and dancer, Catherine was able to bridge her formal training in music and dance with her informal embodiments and experiences in these indigenous arts. Catherine's father, Pats Foley played the melodeon, and her grandmother, Abbey Lane, played the concertina and fiddle. Dancing and singing featured strongly at social gatherings.
The collecting process and experience for Muckross House influenced Catherine to undertake her PhD on Irish dancing from an ethnochoreoogical perspective, and stimulated her research interest in promoting not only traditional step-dance cultures, but an awareness of different dance cultures as embodiments of specific cultural values and ways of knowing.