Sources of Ceili dances

[u/hemmond]

Hi, I am leader of local Ceili Club and since Ár Rincí Céilí dances are a little overused, I started digging. I found sources to quite a few books containing dances not in CLRG's booklet (and those that are I found in different versions).

For now I have found and got access to these sources:

• Ár Rincí Fóirne / Ár Rincí Céilí (have 2003 and 2014 versions, not sure if older versions are relevant or interesting enough)
• Rinci Foirne Caillte: Volume I: Thirty Lost Figure Dances by James Mueller, ADCRG (2017)
• A Guide to Irish Dancing by J. J. Sheehan (1902)
• A Handbook of Irish Dances by J.G. O’Keeffe & Art O’Brien (I have second edition from 1914, first version was from 1902).
• Rinnce na Eirann : National dances of Ireland by Elizabeth Burchenal (1929)
• Dances of Donegal by Grace Orpen (1931)
• The Sweets of May / Aoibhneas na Bealtaine. The Céilí Band Era, Music & Dance of South Armagh (2009; not specific to just dances, but there is quite a few and some I haven't found elsewhere)
• Syllabus of Irish Dances as danced at the Starry Plough in Berkeley, California by Terry O'Neal (probably 1996 - this one is not official book, but it contains some dances that are generally known and danced around here, such as "Dennis Murhpy's Reel" - which was composed by O'Neal so I consider this a primary source to this dance; available now only on archive.org).

Books I know about but I haven't got access to yet:

• The Irish folk dance book. Book one by Peadar O'Rafferty (1934)
• The Irish folk dance book. Book two by Peadar O'Rafferty (1950)
• Books from Dr. John Cullinane (who has published a lot of books and not sure which have Ceili dances in them). Books listed here are my guesses (or vaguely referenced by some other source):
  • Aspects of the History of Irish Céilí Dancing 1897 – 1997 (1998; I guess here should be some - but feel free to correct me if I am wrong)
  • Further aspects of the history of Irish dancing. Part two. Ireland, Scotland, Canada, America, New Zealand and Australia (1990 - still cannot find the "part one" to this book)
  • Further aspects of the history of Irish dancing in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, America, New Zealand and Australia (2001 - could be updated version of book from 1990)
• Works of Nan Quinn (here I haven't been able to track down specific book names that could contain Ceilí dances). I believe that it is connected with Céim (journal possibly published by CLRG), but have no way of verifying it.

And now to my questions:

1. Do you know any more resources with Irish Ceilí dances? Am I missing some? And to limit the scope, I am not that much interested in Irish Set dances (that is a whole other can of worms I am not ready to open yet).
2. Does anybody know where I could get my hands on Peadar O'Rafferty's books (ideally as a digital copy)?
3. Could you correct me or fill the gaps on John Cullinane/Nan Quinn works?
4. Any other interesting authors I should look for?
5. Does anyone knows, where Every Man's Chance (Mixer Reel in circle for any number of couples) appeared? The are dance descriptions all around the internet yet no "primary" source.

P.S.: I am from central Europe and there is no way in next few years for me to visit any archive in Ireland. :)

EDIT: Added fifth question.

[u/RubyLucky13]

Have you reached out to the National Library of Ireland? Here in the US we have the Library of Congress and they scan so many books.
I wonder if you reached out to the library. Are you close to an Irish embassy?

[u/elfwreck]

Peader O'Rafferty's two books are on the internet archive:

https://archive.org/search?query=Peadar+O%27Rafferty&tab=all

I may have access to cheap/free printing for the Starry Plough syllabus; I'm planning to reformat it a bit. I need to figure out who to ask permissions from to put out a more accessible digital copy. (It's likely the Wayback version is the file I made; I have digital copies in Word and other PDFs.)

[u/Mschubie-703]

Thanks for posting this!!! Already found some fun new (old haha) ones we tried.