Annotation:Crossroads Dance (1) (The)

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CROSSROADS DANCE [1], THE (Rince Botair-na-Criosa). Irish, Hornpipe. G Major ('A' part) & E Minor ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Crossroads were a favorite assembling place for dancing in late 18th and early 19th century Ireland, although David Taylor (1992), for one, believes that such social events took place before the 1700's. He also notes that the dance in those days was more important than the music, "and so the popularity of the dance ensured a healthy music tradition...The crossroads was the ideal meeting-place. The more roads arriving at one point the better, as more villages could then take part. At such a point, it is likely there would be enough space for the sets, on hard, level surfaces. Furthermore, there would probably be milestones, fences and grass to sit upon. It is known that a minor 'revival', for want of a better word, of crossroads dancing which took place in remote areas during the 1920's and '30's, platforms upon which to dance were sometimes constructed. Some were wooden, which were the best for the dance but could be broken up and taken away. Others were concrete, which solved the problem of their removal...but created a surface much the harder on feet and footwear." Donal Hickey (Stone Mad for Music, 1999) dates the construction of crossroads platforms to the 19th century and says that several in the Sliabh Luachra region (the Cork/Kerry border area) continued to function into the 20th century. These facilitated the dances which were generally held on Sunday afternoons. Although structures have disappeared, the places where they were are still identifiable in local memory, such as the timber-floored platform at Tureenglanhee, Knocknagree, run by a tailor named Maurice Manley, who was also a musician and music teacher. Another platform was at Newquarter bridge which spans the Blackwater between Gneeveguilla and Ballydesmond. O'Neill (1913) explains:

Every Irishman knows, the meeting place almost invariably was some crossroads, where a piper or fiddler played enlivening music for the youthful dancers, while their elders gossiped in the old familiar way. Those more interested in athletics than in music and dancing, found no lack of that kind of entertainment also. Those national customs were observed until well beyond the middle of the 19th century...

Interestingly, Taylor points out that, with the advent of the waltz and quickstep, 'the authorities (with the strong backing of the clergy) repressed such community gatherings, leading to the regulation of dance-halls. This was the demise of the 'crossroads dances, and to some extent the older set dances, but was to give rise to the modern ceili band who found a venue in the new halls.

Much ancient lore and traditional meaning (some probably stemming from pagan times) was associated with crossroads, a fact which probably factored into the clergy's condemnation of dances there. Éamon Kelly (Foreword, Stone Mad for Music, 1999) recalled being sent as a child to walk from Carrigeen in Glenflesk, Sliabh Luachra, to Gullane to bring family tidings to his grandparents:

From our house to theirs was a tidy step, and even in the daylight I was fearful passing Béalnadeaga because of a story my mother told us about that crossroads. A spirit used to appear there at the dead of night and men out late were frightened to death by her. She had the power to drag a man from a galloping horse, and was said to blind her victim by squirting her breast-milk into his eyes. Priests came to bless the place where she haunted, but the spirit remained until a holy friar in a brown habit read over the spot. His reading of Latin was effective. He banished the spirit to the Dead Sea and the sentence he pronounced on her was that she should drain its waters with a silver spoon for all eternity.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1568, p. 291.

Recorded sources:

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