Sheila's made a living from her love of Irish dancing

Sheila Moffatt lives and breathes her work. She founded the Moffatt School of Irish Dancing nearly three decades ago and over the years the school has produced top champion dancers and Sheila is an experienced adjudicator herself. But that’s not all. Sheila also formed Atlantic Rhythm Productions in 2013, which was a full Irish dance show with live musicians – a show that took the world by storm, including an appearance on Ireland’s Got Talent.

When I meet her one Friday morning in Crossmolina, her passion for what she does is more than evident by the emotion she expresses when talking about her career to date and the impact Irish culture has on those living away from home.

Angelina: Sheila, thanks for sitting down with me. Tell me a little about your background.

Sheila: I'm from Kilmurray, just outside Crossmolina. My parents' house is Kilmurray House - a Bed & Breakfast. I have one brother, Liam. My parents had moved home from England. My mother was brought up in London, but she's a Kerry woman through and through. And my dad was from Crossmolina, so they moved home. My mother's side had always been involved with music and dance. It was there from the beginning and my mother would have danced in London. So I started teaching when I was 17.

Angelina: So that teaching path was one you followed from a very young age?

Sheila: I did my Leaving Certificate and I was supposed to do Hotel Management in Shannon. And Shannon is a private college and the deposit was paid. And in the July I started to teach. The very first class I did in Crossmolina had three pupils in it. I had a class in Keenagh. I didn't think I was going to end up married in Keenagh. I'm married in Keenagh to Padraic, and I have three adult children now. My first class there had 13 kids, and I had a class in Rake Street in Crossmolina, and there was about seven or eight in it. So I was going to do it for the summer, and I ended up coming down to see the principal in secondary school, and I said to her that I was in a predicament, that I loved the dancing, but I wanted to do hotel or events management. So she advised me to defer the course for a year and to either repeat my Leaving Cert or do a Secretarial course to fill the time. So I started to do the Secretarial course, and the dance school started to grow. And before I knew it, I was teaching five, six days a week. I came along at a time where there was an opening for a new school, and I was very young. I didn't even realise at the time that it was starting a business.

Angelina: So it just kind of happened naturally Sheila?

Sheila: It just happened. And then I decided this was what I was going to do. And the teacher that had always taught me wasn't in favour of me going ahead to do my exams. So I had a lot of problems to find a school that would take on somebody to train them to become a teacher, because you have to go through a teacher to do your exams. So, to cut a very long story short, I was put in touch with a great lady, Mary Deere, in Castlebar. She saw me dance, and to be honest, she said straight out to me, 'I can't help you, but I will help you'. Insofar as she meant step wise, she wouldn't have been in a position to put me through. But she said, 'I will get you a teacher'. And she did. 

She put me in touch with Pauline Cunniffe in Athlone, a great woman, who has also passed away since. So I used to travel to Athlone twice a week for three to four hours of classes with Pauline and she put me through my exams. 

From there, then, the school just continued to grow. We started competing. Then in 2011, something happened at an All-Ireland that I couldn't stand over. Something happened with a great champion I had at the time, and three schools decided at the time, myself and two previous colleagues, that we would investigate moving to a different organisation. So we jumped ship. And in a way, it was something very, very good that was meant to happen. It did take a couple of years to adjust. But alongside the move came our non-competitive burst. And I think that's what sets us apart.

Angelina: Sheila, that has become a massive part of what you do?

Sheila: Prior to 2011, we had been doing little bits. But when this move came, I needed to do something that was different for the children. So the first thing we did was a show in Ardagh Community Centre. We re-enacted the Children of Lir and we brought in three live musicians. From that we went to Leonard's of Lahardane and did a re-enactment of an American Wake. Midwest Radio was outside after the performance and they asked me to do an interview, so up I went. When I finished, there was an American tour guide waiting to meet me and she invited us to America. So six months later, we had put together The Emigrants' Farewell, which was a re-enactment of an American Wake to do with the Titanic village. We went to America and it took off. The first night was in Boston, and Dolores O'Boyle was the lead lady, and she started saying the rosary in Irish to start off the show. And the audience answered the rosary back in Irish. The standing ovations that they were getting in the States, you couldn't write it, and they sang The Green and Red of Mayo and the reaction was incredible. Very emotional in fact.

Angelina: This was a very busy time for you?

Sheila: We were guests in the Dáil, we were doing Manchester City Hall, Dublin City Hall - we were everywhere. And the musicians then started to develop, and they started to bring in more musicians with them. And our singers were developing, and we had a great run with that kind of American Wake theme. And then it was time for the next step. We set up Atlantic Rhythm in 2013, and then we started to put a structure on it. Again, it started to grow. We did all the local festivals. And we formed Trad Beats, which was a show that was ready to go when Covid hit. And prior to that, we had done Ireland's Got Talent and reached the semi-finals and that was a huge break – we did practically every festival in the country after it.

Angelina: Covid hits and the entertainment industry was very hard hit?

Sheila: We were one of the first things closed and one of the last things to reopen. The first few weeks everyone thought this will pass. And then it started to get serious and I knew if I didn't try and keep contact with the school, the school would be gone. I have three children, Ronan, Lisa and Cian. Ronan doesn't dance. He's in Australia now. He does a lot in the background when I need help. The other two are very big into their dance. So they first of all formed a WhatsApp group to say we were going to try and do something to keep in touch with everybody. Then we started to do Zoom classes, which fried my head. We set up Google Classroom after that but nothing can match the social aspect of Irish dancing. 

I did some other things during that time too - the website was redeveloped. I was doing courses with the Local Enterprise Office, who I have to say were excellent. But boredom struck and I decided I'd do a course. So I did an online events course and I got my diploma in Event Management. I haven't time to do anything with that at the moment but I would like to get involved in organising Irish festivals abroad. I would love the chance to redevelop Atlantic Rhythm, which we will try and do for this summer. The dancers are back and the singer is secured. It's musicians I now have to look at. But the next leg for me then, if I can get the backing and a bit of help with it, is I would like to get involved with promoting Irish culture abroad and being involved in the events planning of Irish festivals abroad.

Angelina: You have a huge passion for what you do Sheila, is that what keeps you driven?

Sheila: I found after Covid that it was very difficult. Through the Zoom classes and that we held a lot of our older dancers but you have to remember, we'd no younger intake during Covid. And with a business like mine, if you don't keep building from the bottom up, if you don't have two or three good under sixes every year, you don't have a future. You have to give every child that comes through your door the same love and attention that past champions got. If I'm honest, I had lost that passion. I was seriously considering packing it in. 

After Covid was very hard, insofar as you were rebuilding, you were doing what you did 30 years ago. But now the school is in a good place with great young kids. We're back getting our invitations connected to the school to do the festivals, the fleadhs, which is what we need to have the name out there. 

Sometimes with Irish dancing, people get carried away with the competition and the wigs and the tan and that's fine. If that's what you want to do, that's fine. But for me, sometimes the excitement is maybe a child who has a medical problem and they've been sent to you because they need help with exercises for their feet and they're never going to be first on the podium, but they achieve first in so many different ways. And I think that's another thing that sets us slightly apart. You often get more of a kick out a child who manages to do the jig after a year and a half than somebody who won a huge title with half the effort.