It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and all of us — whatever our origins — are Irish today. Green beer, green bagels — and twinkling toes!
To celebrate, here’s to the twinkling-est toes of all, on the Lord of the Dance himself, a very young Michael Flatley, with a backup of superb Irish step dancers from an early edition of Riverdance, a youtube video guaranteed to set your toes a-tapping:
(A rather different version of the Lord of the Dance can be found over on View from the Woods; like those tests in junior high school, Contrast and compare!)
Touch2Touch 
It didn’t happen to me on St Patrick’s Day, but it’s still relevant. 🙂 Fun!
http://smilekiddo.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/stomping-on-my-heart-in-a-good-way/
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You mean your toes weren’t tapping today? 😉
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Ah, I remember it well. Sr. Raphael taught us how to dance as the Irish do!
The fast twist of the ankle, the stamp of the foot, no movin’ the arms, straight back and legs. We danced at the CYO talent show for Our Lady of Grace in Howard Beach. “Notin’ should be movin’ but your feet and your mouth, to smile.”
Even younger, Dr. Fitzgerald taught me how to jig, reel, and hornpipe with the Costigan twins, Maureen and Noreen (identical twins who used to take one another’s tests in high school), and their brother Billy. My mother took me to the Irish feis at Fordham to show my stuff (which wasn’t much compared to others). I was proud as were my mother and father. But the thing I recall with deep gratitude and reverence is my father Anthony Joseph Craine who was a simple laborer. Every St Patrick’s Day he pulled out his green silk tie, neatly wrapped in tissue in a box preserved for the great feast, and his best white shirt to wear on St Patrick’s day. I think it was as much for mourning as it was for celebration. His father Patrick Craine died when my father was very young. His mother Bridget Gallagher Craine was left with four children to raise. Later she married again and added to the flock. On St Patrick’s day everyone shares in the wealth of those who loved us, nurtured us, and risked the rocky terrain of life to keep us healthy, happy, and safe with a vision for our ultimate end. So, the top of the mornin’ to you and the rest of the day!
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Wonderful St. Paddy’s Day memories, Therese!
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I watched the video before I dashed off to work and again when I returned home. Those drums, that stamping – it’s almost pagan in the way it makes the blood move!
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That must be why I like it so much! I have decided that I may well be pagan —
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