Young Dancers Return Triumphant from All Ireland Dance Championships
By ELMA MELHUS
VANCOUVER - Four young Irish dancers from the Penk O'Donnell School are celebrating after a very exciting week at the All Ireland Irish Dance Championships in Killarney, Ireland February 6-12. The competition was very stiff with 150-200 dancers in each competition.
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| THE FOUR Penk O’Donnell Irish Dancers with teacher, Deirdre Penk O’Donnell, after the awards presentations. From L-R, Catherine Gallagher, Candice Corrigan, Deirdre Penk, Gabrielle Corrigan, and Lara Brewster. |
All competitors danced two dances and were judged by a panel of five adjudicators. The top 50 dancers in each competition were called back to do a third dance. All four Penk O'Donnell dancers made it through to the final round and all came home with medals.
Candice Corrigan who dances with the Vancouver based Irish Dance School has given them all something to celebrate with her 14th place finish in the Girls 14-15 Competition. More exciting than that though, was the gold medal Candice won for First Place in the Hard Shoe round of competition. Candice beat out nearly 200 other top Irish dancers from around the World including the current World Champion to claim this prize.
The three other dancers who represented Penk O'Donnell made the school proud as well. Catherine Gallagher, former North American Champion, came home with two medals from Killarney – a 14th place medal in the soft shoe round, and an overall placement medal of 18th in the Girls 15-16.
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| CANDICE CORRIGAN with teacher, Deirdre Penk O'Donnell, after being awarded her first place gold medal. The All Ireland stage in Killarney Ireland is in the backdrop. |
Gabrielle Corrigan came home with three medals – two top 20 medals for her soft shoe and hard shoe, and a 29th place finish in the Girls 11-12. Lara Brewster brought back two medals – a 16th place finish in her soft shoe and an overall placement of 29th in the Girls 15-16.
The World Championships will be the next big competition for these girls. Twenty-four dancers from the Penk O'Donnell School have qualified to dance at the World Championships in Belfast, Ireland April 9-16. Twenty of these dancers, including the four dancers in this story, will be making the trip and are training hard for the big event.
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