Bridge of Athlone dance origins

Subject: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: Mo the caller
Date: 24 Jan 24 - 03:22 PM

The dance is published by EFDSS in Community Dance Manual Vol6 as a 48bar American Dance to jigs. Someone is asking on a Shared Weight discussion list about it's origins.

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: Felipa
Date: 24 Jan 24 - 08:00 PM

Athlone is a town in County Westmeath, Ireland
I see that there are youtube videos of people doing this dance
The moves are familiar, found in other slightly more complicated dances; for instance it's similar to the last part of the Virginia Reel.

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 04:27 AM

What differentiates this dance from other variations on Virginia Reel is the tunnel/bridge sequence, presumably the Bridge in the name. However, I don’t recall any similar figure in Clopton Bridge.

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 05:07 AM

The Bridge of Athlone is a ceili dance isn't it? Walls of Limerick, Siege of Ennis etc., one of those. They were invented by the Gaelic League as proper, true, native dxnces to replace the sets/quadrilles, foreign stuff. Makey uppys, in other words. They were popular in their time and this one appears to have crossed the ocean for a life as contredance.

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 05:21 AM

I suspect you’re right, but who can be sure? It’s not particularly Irish, but then the Virginia Reel is more likely to be Scottish in origin to my mind.

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 07:11 AM

The history of Ceili dancing is well documented, I think. So that would be a way to find out the origins.

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 10:32 AM

To follow up on the post above: do try to separate the wheat from the chaff, avoid histories that tell you ceili dancing dates back to the druids and that sort of nonsense.

This one seems to do allright-ish, at a quick glance :



a short history of ceili dancing

Subject: RE: Bridge of Athlone dance origins
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 12:19 PM

Bridge of Athlone A long dance for any number of couples. Form two lines, gents facing ladies with the gents left shoulder facing the band. My guess is that it dates from about 1870, but it is a guess