The wife's a Morris dancer, John, and I get to see it quite often being a guy who likes to get out of the house and support her activities. I agree, it is exciting, vigorous (certainly is tiring) and very traditional. The kind of Irish dancing you may not have seen is the sean nos or "old style" solo Irish dancing which is very loose and employs the whole body (well, practically the whole body); it's what the modern and rather "stiff-above-the-belt" competitive dancing evolved from and, I'm sure, contributed to other dance forms in the Americas. Irish social dancing has the characteristics you mention above as well.

Anyway, back to the English tradition...