Irish dance has been around for a long time. How long exactly is not known: estimations differ and the source is not always trustworthy. It becomes far more apparent around the 19th century, but that could be down to the fact that materials and techniques to write on and duplicate became much more common and available, making up for a better documentation for later.

For long, the dance itself was something for the Irish only, tought by tutors who travelled the land. The great famines that wrecked the country in the 19th century, started big emigrations. A great deal of the Irish population left the country for the United States, Canada and Australia and by doing so, took the dance across the big waters. From Irish dance, a lot of new genres of dance evolved at the other side of the world.

Fame due to the Eurovision Song Contest

Despite the many emigrations, Irish dance remained something 'underground', unknown to the great public. All that changed in the nineties of the last century. Ireland was the organising country of the Eurovision Song Contest for the second time in a row and a special, truly Irish interval-act was thought of.
The interval-act, normally a not so interesting performance and quite often a toilet-moment and therefore little viewers, this time consisted of a group of Irish dancers, with Michael Flatley and Jean Butler in the lead, dancing to a piece of music from Bill Whelan.

The British as well as the Dutch voice-over warned the viewer that the interval-act was absolutely worth to look at and the performance, opened by the magical choir Anuna, hit the crowd with unimaginable force.
After the great performance the Point Theatre in Dublin was not far from exploding and the public, completely overwhelmed, reacted with a standing ovation that lasted almost a minute. Looking back now, it is hard to imagine that till that moment, there was still doubt wether the act would be a succes.

No plans after the big succes

Also hard to imagine: there was not a real marketing-plan that told the producers what to do if Riverdance would turn out to be a succes. Directly after the contest, record-stores in Ireland and many other countries saw a great demand by the public who wanted more from what they had heard and seen on TV. For as far it was available, recordstores could only offer traditional Irish music. Contemporary Irish dance in audio and video just did not exist. The producers were completely surprised by the sudden succes and plans for marketing had to be thought of in an instant.

Riverdance 'The act' eventually went on to set a monstruous record by spending not less than 18 consecutive weeks (!) at the first position in the Irish charts. Eventually, the 7-minute performance went on to become a complete stage-worthy show only nine months later. The show would break multiple records and perform all around the world. One thing was for sure: since the 30th of April 1994, Irish dance suddenly existed for the rest of the world, an advance that goes on till this day.

Though Riverdance 'The Show' became known to the public as 'Irish dance' there are big differences between the showdance (contemporary Irish Dance) and the traditional dance.

• Part 2: Why do the Irish dance that way?
• Part 4: Show and tradition: movements

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