Chapter One: Beginnings
1942 to 1963
Although a
significant percent of the Arizona
population was of Irish descent just prior to statehood in 1912 and thereafter,
there are few available references to any Irish dancing that may have existed.
Certainly, Irish and other white settlers performed dances of Irish origin, or
with Irish influence. For example, both square dancing and tap dancing, two of America’s
primary cultural dance styles, have roots in Irish dancing. However, the Irish
dancing of the time does not seem to have left any long term influence on
Arizonan/Sonoran desert culture. The opposite is true of other forms such as
German music and dance, which one can see in the form of the hybrid Waila.
However, some sort of Irish dancing must have existed in the region.
As Arizona’s
population began to grow in the 1940s and 1950s, so grew the Irish culture.
Mary McCormack recalled what she learned when she first came to Phoenix.
In 1962, we moved from New
Jersey to Phoenix,
and, in the fall, I inquired if there were any Irish teachers, teachers of
Irish dance, in the Phoenix area.
Well, the Lawlors, Nora and Pat, were neighbors, and their children were in
class with my children at St. Theresa’s, and they said, ‘No, there are no Irish
dancing teachers here’. The Cunninghams, from Chicago,
had learned some steps, and it was Maggie Cunningham who had danced whenever
they needed somebody, because this lady from Chicago
had taught her the jig... She danced and Sterling Briggs played the pipes for
her in [performances].
Margaret (Maggie)
Cunningham Hyland, one of the first dancers in the “Valley of the Sun”,
recounted the beginnings of Irish dance (and organized Irish cultural
activities) in Arizona.
My parents came to Arizona
in 1942, my mother was dying with [tuberculosis], my father was very bad with
asthma in Chicago they said. There
were four of us kids, they had lost the first baby, my sister is five years
older, and then my bother Jimmy that you talked to, and my brother Eddy. And so
they said if you go to Arizona
you’re going to live, but she is [still going to die]… Anyway, we came to Arizona
in ‘42; I was three years old. So then my sister had studied Irish dancing in Chicago,
with somebody…the name was Roche, I’m not sure…it was probably Pat Roche. So
she had done probably a jig and a reel, and I was, my mom used to say, ‘oh,
Margaret Mary is a born dancer, she is like a cat running to milk’. I was mad
to dance. I did dance. I danced professionally and I am ballet-trained.
I don’t know if you know
this about the Irish, but the philosophy and the belief was, and especially in
my family because there was so much natural ability, my brother Jimmy that you
talked to had a beautiful Irish tenor voice, a and there was such a natural
ability to sing and dance, and they promoted it, and they honored it, and my
mother’s father, Pat McNicholas, was a brilliant step dancer. He was like
All-Ireland champion step dancer, they were trained, you know. He went with his
sister, this is two generations ago in Ireland, so she would have company,
and he sat on the bench and learned all his dances. She learned a few steps but
he learned everything, sitting on the bench. He was a marvelous dancer.. They
were always singing and dancing. There was a lot of it, and it was honored, because also that same
grandfather, Pat McNicholas, sang more beautifully than some of our tenors
today. He had this natural clear, gorgeous Irish tenor voice. No training. So
they had a great appreciation of it. So it was like, ‘Of course [you] will take
Irish step dancing’.
My father, when we came to Arizona, was so lonesome. There was
absolutely no Irish here, and he would stop down to have a beer sometimes after
work, and he would say, ‘I would give my soul to hear an Irish tune!’, because
it was, ‘Lay that that pistol down,
babe, lay that pistol down - Pistol Packin’ Mammy- Lay that pistol
down’, and he would
go nuts with
that, or it was Mexican. He worked for the city, and they would all speak
Spanish, and he used to say, ‘Will you speak English, for Christ’s sake! You’re
in America’…
The Cunninghams and other families started to organize Irish
social events.
There was not much doing,
and my father was great. He was like
president of the union and he was in the
Knights of Columbus, and he was an usher in the church, very civically-minded
So he was the one, because we were the first, we were the first Cunninghams
here. Everybody came here in these days to die. They came for TB and stuff.
They came because of the light air. People used to sleep on the roofs and sleep
outside, and do all kinds of things, because all we had was swamp coolers, but
that was all you needed in those days. Every other Irishman that started to
come, would come through our house. There was the Mullins, and there was the
Hanifans, and there was the Sullivans. They would visit with my dad, and he would help them
all find jobs if they needed that. So, it was like a small community. So my
father, probably about 1945, started what he called the Irish-American Social
Club, and that was the very first Irish club. There was a little hall, around
15th or 16th Avenue and Van Buren, there was a little
hall called the Assembly Hall, but you could rent it probably, I don’t know,
for around maybe 10 or 20 bucks, maybe 50. We would have potluck, and all the
women would bring dishes, and all the Irish that started coming to Arizona, would get together, and we
would do sets and Irish dances. I grew up doing Irish sets because in our
living room in the old
days it was linoleum… They would push the chairs back and get everything out of
the front room, and the Sullivans and the Mullins, and Uncle Tom and all of
them, and they would be doing the Irish sets. And I can remember as a little
girl, I would have my little arms up on their shoulders, they would take me off
my legs, and we would be flying around the room, you know, round the house, and
they would be flying. And it was the old Victrola that you cranked with your
hand, and maybe a big old 78 record. And they always would do the Irish sets and the dances. The one good
thing about the Irish is that when they
get together they want to laugh. They tell stories and they tell jokes and they
laugh until they are falling down. So they would come and it was always potato
salad and ham, and there would be Irish soda bread, and the drink in those days
was the highball, which was whiskey and Seven Up or ginger ale. ‘Will ya have a
drink?’ that meant, ‘Will ya have a highball?’. And even the kids, we were kids
they would say, ‘Margaret Mary will ya make a drink for Uncle Tom?’ and you
would go into the kitchen and you would mix a bunch of whiskey in a full glass
of ginger ale and ice, and that’s what everybody drank. So they had the eats,
and then in the front room they would dance and dance and dance. And they would
do the Highland Fling and the Stack of Barley. And the sets… They didn’t do the
Siege of Ennis in those days... Going in and out and around and in and out and
around, and then, like I say, the whole group would go in and out, and then the whole group would swing like
hell. It was great fun!
An Irish party…It was a
great thing, and even my brothers, they would rent the assembly hall, and it
would take all day, like my dad and my brother Eddy, and my brother Jimmy,
would go and set it up, tables and chairs. And my mother would be all day and
the night before making a huge thing of potato salad and sandwiches, like they
do in Ireland, you know, they make the
sandwich. It is very tasty in Ireland. But they served
sandwiches. So the week before St Patrick’s Day they were up on the phone
calling everyone who they knew was Irish, and spreading the word. ‘You’ll come
to the party now, it is at the assembly hall,’ I mean, no formal invitation,
nothing, just a
phone call, and they’d all come. There would be a table going down the center
and it would be covered with food. So then you would have Irish records, or, in
the old days, there was an old codger. My mother was a great one for, she
always took care of people and she took care of these old guys, they had
nobody. Pat Dirkin, was out here… everybody was out here for their health in
the old days, and he was out here for his chest also. Well, he was one of those
Irishmen, it’s a rare breed. It was the last of that breed. There were two
of them in my life, and I have never
forgotten them. Bill Colley was one of them. And he could stand in my front
room and quote maybe ten, fifteen verses of a beautiful Irish poem, not missing
a word, and he could quote, and quote, and quote. Because the Irish, you know,
they went to hedge schools. I think in my mom’s generation (she was born in
1909) they were just then getting the schools back. The English had persecuted
them and destRoryed their churches and schools, and they were not allowed to
speak Gaelic, and so they were taught in hedge schools. Anybody that knew the
numbers and knew the English would volunteer to meet with a group of kids and
try and teach them. So they were taught literally under hedges and underground.
And so Bill Colley is of that era and they had to memorize. They memorized, and
it is the whole thing of the Seanachie, the Irish storyteller. They memorized
many, many, many stories, and they would go from house to house, and they would sit and
entertain you. And, of course, you would feed them and they’d sit around the
fire. And that is how they brought the news and they would be telling the
stories and singing the songs. So that is why they are naturally such a verbal
race. Bill Colley would stand in the doorway and do verse after verse, and I
remember being a little girl looking at him, thinking, ‘How can he remember all
of that?’
because they don’t miss a beat. Well,
now, Pat Dirkin, who I was telling you about, he was a skinny old guy, bad
chest, and his wife, and he had a son who was in the seminary, of course. He
was another one. He would come, and before he had entered the house he would
stand for five minutes in the door telling my mother, ‘What a gracious, fine,
lovely lady, and what a fine hostess, and what a fine family you have raised,
and God bless you, it is a credit to you,’
and they would go on, and on, and on. He was like they say, ‘Full of
Blarney,’ he would never insult you.. the Irish have a way of not being direct.
Americans will say, ‘I don’t like that hat. Why are you wearing that hat?’ An
Irishman would never say that. My own father would look at you with a kind of
scornful face and say, ‘Shoot, that hat’s a credit to you.’ Meaning... it is making you
look ugly, take it off. So, anyways, Dirkin had this great gift of gab, where he would talk
and talk and talk, and he was full of blarney, if you know what I mean. Dirkin
was a great melodian [player], do you know what a melodian is? Well, you know
what an accordion is…Well, a melodian is octagonal and it is round, it is a
little round, but it is the same thing. It is a little squeezebox. The Irish
use a lot of accordion players, and so he played the melodian. He played the
jigs and the reels... He was one of the first ones that played for me.
For a while, these
parties were the main opportunity to see Irish dancing. However, a girl named
Mae Cooney arrived and began teaching
step dancing to her few but eager pupils. Margaret Cunningham continued:
In those days, the Hanifans,
John Hanifan, lived over by St. Agnes”. John Hanifan brought his niece, Mae
Cooney, from Cork, Ireland, and she stayed with him. I
don’t know if she was trying to emigrate, I’m sure she was. She was here for a
number of years. She was a short girl with dark hair. She had studied step
dancing in Ireland. So there was myself who
was mad for dancing, and [with] natural ability. I could look at it and do it,
it came naturally to me. Then there was
Sylvester and Matthew O’Brien. They lived over on Jackson Street, and this was all St.
Matthew’s Parish, and they had Kathleen, Helen, and Sheila. I think that
Kathleen didn’t study, but I think Sheila did and I know that Helen did because
Helen was in the same class as I was. There might have been one or two others.
There was only a handful of us. We would go to John Hanifan’s house. As I said,
they considered it very important that we learned the jig. And then [my father
and the Hanifans] would have a visit, and they would probably have their
highball. Mae Cooney was in some room, I don’t remember, but I do remember a
linoleum floor. She taught us. She was here for a while, because I remember
that I learned a reel as the first thing that you do. It’s a one-two-three, and
a one-two-three, and a one-two-three-four-five-six-seven and so on. So she
taught us the reel first. I don’t know if there were five or six dancers, there
might have been only four of us. First you learned the reel, and then you learned the
jig, and then if you were the die-hard, little good dancer that I was, you
learned a hornpipe. So I learned all of these dances from here, and I know that
I was only in third or fourth grade when I learned this, but, for me, it came
really easy. I had good coordination. I could hop like a rabbit. So that was
the origination of Irish step dancing in Arizona. There was none before that
time.
Margaret Cunningham and her brothers and sisters would share their
dancing with their classmates and the nuns at their school, who were always
very enthusiastic about her dancing and eager to promote Irish Catholic culture.
Every St. Patrick’s Day, she would perform a showcase in as many of the
classrooms in her school as was possible.
So I would tell my story of
St. Patrick, and then I would have my little record, and they would have the
Victrola, the record player, in the class. I would dance the jig, and maybe a
reel, and maybe a hornpipe, and, boy, I could dance like a bat out of hell. I
could do three or four or five dances. I never got tired… I could just jump
like a gazelle so I would go from class to class. They would send me to the
next classroom, and the next classroom so I would go through the whole school
telling the story of St. Patrick, and dancing jigs. Now, my sister had told the
story, but I don’t think that she did the jig. I would do the jig and do my little
demonstration. We were like the most Irish of the Irish. The culture was kept
very much alive. My brother sang ‘The Rose of Tralee’, “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’, ‘Danny
Boy;, all the old Irish songs. He sang them all. And then we all sang.
Although Margaret
Cunningham maintained her step dancing talent after Mae Cooney left Phoenix,
and occasionally taught her own classes, there was not a very fast growth in
the number of people dancing. Ms. Cunningham was also working as a ballet
performer and in other styles, and, thus, Irish dancing was a love, but not
always a first priority for her. She and her brother, (now Father) John Cunningham also created a musical routine
which they performed for many years, and were very influential in the development
of the Irish music scene.
After Mae Cooney, I was the
only one who kept up the dancing. When I was older, being out having a drink
somewhere, someone playing ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ and it was St. Paddy’s Day,
and I had high heels on, and I was the only one in the lounge who could do a
jig. So I did the ‘Turkey in the Straw’ in high
heels. Gradually, people came. Women that had learned the jig back east or
somewhere else, would come to the parties, and they would jump up and do a few
steps, but I was the only one that actually performed it… I worked with a
group, and my performances were the Irish jig and the hornpipe and, if they
wanted more, the Charleston. And I won contests with
the Irish jig and the Charleston! First it was Pat Dirkin on
the melodian, and then Sterling Briggs on the bagpipes, and then the next great
accompanist was Sol Rudnick. Sol Rudnick was a little Jewish man who should
have been Irish. All he ever did was play Irish music, and he really dedicated
his life to Irish music. He was totally into it. So, in the later years Sol
Rudnick was our sole accompanist. But, again, there were no schools. I got
married in 1960, ’61, and it was after I got married and we moved back here
that I did teach some step dancing. And again, I was still dancing. I never
stopped dancing until currently. So, by now, we have some people that are
coming in who know it from being taught somewhere else, and the Irish community
is growing, because now you have the clubs kind of split off.
I taught my brother John the
Irish jig, the reel, and the hornpipe. He learned guitar when he was young,
like in high school. He became very good at it. We used to sit around the house
singing Irish songs, strumming the chords. So we did Irish shows. John and I
were the only Irish entertainment for years, all through the late fifties and
the sixties. There was nothing here…there were no bands [or anything] - it was
John and I. When Jerry and John McMorrow were little kids, Pat raised them so
Irish, and Pat McMorrow is a great dancer. I have danced my entire life with
Pat McMorrow.
So he wanted the kids
to have the Irish culture. Well, those little guys, the guitar was bigger than
they were! But they started singing and playing with us. We would have these
jam sessions. You know Irish parties, we would all get together and God
almighty, we would go on all night singing like mad, and dancing. Then Claire,
their sister, I think she studied with Mary McCormack.
In 1962, Mary
McCormack and her family moved to Phoenix,
and Mary was convinced to begin teaching classes. She and her daughters had
previously studied dancing on the east coast. She described her background:
After taking lessons from
the Baron school as a child, I did see the style of dancing that was being
taught in 1959 and the 60s in New Jersey by Una Ellis. In fact, I
went to her adult class a few times, and enjoyed doing the steps the way they
were teaching them then.
My [first] dance teacher taught, and he also played
the fiddle. So when we were dancing, and he was teaching, he’d play the fiddle.
We didn’t have any records or tape machines. They had to have a lot of
musicians.
Una Ellis, one of America’s
longest-teaching and most accomplished Irish dance teachers, recalled the
classes that Mary and her daughters would have attended, as well as her own
background.
I was in my thirties... It was in Bergenfield,
New Jersey. It was in a private hall I
think. Basically, they may be the same as today. I had the beginners first for
an hour, and then kind of intermediate, then the more advanced dancers, and
then we had a special class for figure dancing... I think we were more advanced
than they were a few years before that - more coming towards the Irish way.
Probably we were headed more that direction, toward the culture of Irish
dancing as it is today.... I had about
150 (students). As my class grew and expanded, probably in the early sixties I
would have had about 160.
We were out all the time. We
went to different shows. We did a show with Maureen O’Hara, in New York on St. Patrick’s Day, and
we did all kinds of shows, just like they do today, especially during St.
Patrick’s week. You know, it was always very busy…Church dances and things like that, because they
wanted entertainment.
I started with James T. McKenna
in New York, many years ago, and then when I was a teenager I
went to Ireland. Well I was born over
there, but I went over for lessons, and I went to Anna McCoy in Belfast, Ireland, and I went to her for
about three summers. She helped me with my TCRG. I studied with her.
Mary McCormack met
Margaret Cunningham at a party at St. Theresa’s Parish, where they performed
together. Mary McCormack recalled:
In the fall of 1962, there were plans to have a St.
Patrick’s Day party at St. Theresa’s Parish, for Father Michael O’Grady. Word
got out that I knew a few Irish steps, and some of the women in the parish who
were Irish-American and Irish born thought that they would like to perform if I
would teach them something, and we could be part of the party. I taught the
ladies a jig step and a three hand reel. They said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to teach
our children’. Well, that next year in March, at the Friendly Sons of St.
Patrick party, my daughter Mary had a costume from Una Ellis’s class. She
danced, and John Cunningham and Maggie danced [in downtown Phoenix].
Sterling Briggs was involved with the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and he
played the pipes. He was trying to get a pipe band together. He started
teaching bagpipes. John McMorrow took lessons from him later on.
Mary McCormack was
to become one of the most prominent figures in the sphere of Irish dancing in Arizona.