"Hard shoe" could also mean boots. I've often heard of sparks flying from the hob-nails of dancers' boots on the flag-stone floors of country houses ("round the house and mind the dresser")!

I doubt very much whether the old country folk could either afford or have access to proper dance shoes in the days well before the "Riverdance" phenomenom.

JTT's comments about battering are correct. It was usually only done by men, spontaneously when the urge overcame them and would have given great lift to the proceedings, sometimes competing with each other in a friendly and jocular (or possibly not!) way; sometimes to win the affection of a local lady. Today, many people, inluding the ladies, batter (pounding, some people say) away all the time to the same boring, repetitious pattern, some of the old-timers must be turning over in their graves!

Larry Lynch's seminal book, "Set Dances of Ireland - Tradition and Evolution" published in 1989 by Seadna Books in collaboration with Dal gCais Publications (ISBN 0-9514848-0-X [R.O.I.], ISBN 0-9623366-0-2 [U.S.A.] tells you just about everything you want to know on the subject. He had the good fortune to meet many old-timers in the S.W. of Ireland in his crusade to collect as much as possible from them before they passed on.