Irish eyes were smiling...

...and Irish (or at least American, and one set of English) feet were high-stepping tonight at the church hall where the Girl was performing in her first Irish dance recital.

It was very jolly, and very well done.  We had a special interest in our own dancer, of course, but all the kids did a nice job.  They have a lovely teacher, who deliberately emphasizes fun, excercise and community performance (some dance schools I've looked into in the past are highly competitive - quite strict and scary sounding). 

The majority of the ten or so kids in the class have some sort Irish ancestory, at least if the audience made up of their relatives was anything to go by - every other person was called Eamon or Maeve.  Mind you, if you know my real-world surname you might say that in that respect I could pass for Oirish meself.

No more dance lessons until the New Year - but (yikes) that's not far off now.  The Girl is keen to continue with a pursuit that seems to come rather naturally to her.  She may only have been learnng it formally for a year, but she's been merrily step-dancing on her own account since she was about seven, before she even knew what it was called.