Irish Dance (Then and Now)
Back in 2001, when I was a beginner Irish dancer, I created a website all about Irish dance. It still exists, and you can find it here.
On that website, you will find a fairly-but-not-ever-completely exhaustive Irish Dance Dictionary. I’ve updated it off and on throughout the last two decades, but it will provide the two main things you’re probably wanting to know: how to say feis and how to say oireachtas, and what the hell they even mean.
The dictionary is a pretty long list of stuff, so I’ve pulled the entries out for you:
Feis (pronounced "fesh"; pl. feiseanna "FESH-ah-nah"): An Irish dance competition. Translates to “festival.” The feis is the main avenue dancers use to advance levels. Feiseanna are held year-round, though more often in spring/summer, and are typically hosted by a local dance school. Historically, a feis included céilí (group) and solo step dancing, food, crafts, music, livestock, or language competitions. Some feiseanna still have art, baking, or music competitions, but these are not the focus. The plural is not feises, and it's time we break that bad habit. Gaeilge is its own language and does not pluralize the same as English!!!
Oireachtas (pronounced “oh-ROCK-tus,” through there are different dialects; pl. oireachtais): Sometimes referred to as "O-Rock" or Regionals. This is a regional competition and world/national qualifier. Only the top level solo dancers and teams are sent. Historically, before regions were established in the 1970s, the national competition was the main oireachtas. In North America, it was around 1974 that the first regional competitions began to take place, not long after Ireland's regions were defined.
Of course, it’s important to remember that Irish dance in 1977 was pretty different to Irish dance today, not only in style, but in how it was run.
As Sylvie mentions, the World Championships (Oireachtas Rince na Cruinne) was first staged in 1970, and the first transatlantic dancer (basically the first non-Irish or UK dancer) to win only did so in 1975.
(And who was that teenage boy from Chicago Sylvie mentions in passing? Michael Flatley, Mr. Lord of the Dance himself, who would go on to shape Irish dance as we know it.)
Competitive Irish dance was undergoing seismic shifts in the 1970s, notably with the creation of regional councils/organizations within individual countries, as well as the first regional oireachtais. Until the mid-1970s, the oireachtas for Sylvie was also the national competition, and, lucky for her, it was usually hosted within easy driving distance for her family (well, if they had a car).
Today, North America is divided into the following regions (some of these were not yet established in 1977): Western US, Southern US (including Mexico), Mid-America US , Mid-Atlantic US, New England US, Western Canada, and Eastern Canada. (Sylvie competed in the Mid-Atlantic Region, for those who are curious.)
Regionals became one way that transatlantic schools could generate more world qualifiers and (hopefully) placements. Because during Sylvie’s era there was a lot of debate over the extent of Irish and UK bias from adjudicators at the world level. There was such spotty success for solo dancers and teams from abroad that a separate award just for transatlantic dancers was introduced.
In addition to this stumbling block, the amount of steps and the speed of the music was not standardized in 1977. The dancer was at the mercy of the adjudicators and musicians. That would strike the fear of God into any modern dancer, let me tell you. Today, everything about the execution of the dance is regulated, and no dancer is surprised with a weird speed or an extra step.