Jiving craze sweeps Ireland ahead of Cowboys and Heroes Country Music Festival
Why thousands of young people are jiving again
As Cowboys and Heroes prepares to return to Drumcoura City this June Bank Holiday weekend, one of Ireland’s best-known dance teachers says the country dancing scene has never been stronger.
Declan Flanagan, who has been involved with the Ballinamore festival since it first began, says jiving and line dancing have exploded in popularity across Ireland, particularly among young people.
Speaking ahead of this year’s festival, Mr Flanagan said the sight of hundreds of teenagers and young adults jiving at Cowboys and Heroes is proof that country dancing has found a whole new generation.
“There are a lot of young people jiving now,” he said. “That has really only happened in the last five, six or seven years. It started slowly, but now it has taken off by itself. Now it is the thing to do.”
Mr Flanagan said the country dancing revival has become one of the most positive social movements for young people in Ireland. “It is a great thing for them,” he said. “It is a very safe environment for young lads and girls. It is probably one of the only places where young people, from 16 up, can go out socially and be in a safe place.
“There is no heavy drinking, no drugs, no trouble. It is like an oasis really for young people going out.” He said many teenagers now face a gap in social life, where they are too young for pubs and nightclubs but too old for many organised youth activities.
“You take a 16-year-old wanting to go out,” he said. “They can’t get in anywhere because they are underage. So where do they go? Often they end up at house parties or unsupervised places.
“But when they are involved in dancing, they are always with adults. They are in halls, at dances, at events. It is supervised and it is safe.”
Mr Flanagan has worked with young people for much of his life, including through scouts and youth clubs, and said he has long seen the challenge of keeping teenagers involved in positive activities.
“You get them up to 14 or 15 and they start giving everything up,” he said. “They give up Irish dancing, sport, scouts, youth clubs — and there is nothing really to carry them through.
“That is why I think dancing is such a good thing. I would nearly make it compulsory for young people.” He said when he first started teaching, young people were not dancing in large numbers and there were very few classes aimed at them.
“When I started off, there was no teaching like there is now and there were no young people dancing,” he said. “We put a big effort into trying to get a few of them involved.
Mr Flanagan said once dancing stopped being seen as an “adult thing”, young people embraced it.
“Once it became something they wanted, it took off,” he said. “Now you see thousands of them out dancing, especially at Cowboys and Heroes. They are all really good and they are enjoying it.”
He said the appeal of dancing is very different to the nightclub scene. “If you go to a nightclub, really the only thing to do is drink,” he said. “You stand around and drink. That is the night.
“But with dancing, people travel. I would think nothing of getting into a car and driving two hours to a dance. People from Wexford, Carlow, Galway, Leitrim, all over the country, are meeting each other all the time.
“They have friends in the north, friends in the west, friends everywhere. They are constantly meeting up with people from all over Ireland. That does not happen in many other walks of life.”
Mr Flanagan said Cowboys and Heroes has become one of the key gathering points for that community. “Cowboys is a big event and they all go there,” he said. “Young people go to show off their skills, to meet friends, to dance and enjoy themselves.”
He said jiving in particular gives young dancers the chance to be creative. “The lads love having something a little bit special or different,” he said. “They are always watching YouTube, seeing someone doing a move, going home and practising it.
“They meet up in houses and practise. They are always trying different ways of doing things. That is part of the excitement of jiving.” He added that jiving has a particular energy because it allows dancers to express themselves. “You can only really do all those moves in jiving,” he said. “With a waltz or a quickstep, two people get together and do the dance. But jiving is exciting. There is room for expression.”
While younger people are leading the revival, Mr Flanagan said adults of all ages are also returning to the dance floor. He said many people born after the mid-1950s grew up during the disco era and never learned traditional social dancing. “Anyone born after around 1955 would have been a teenager in the 1970s,” he explained. “By then discos had come in and a lot of people never learned to dance.
“So now you have people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s coming to classes. They are all starting from scratch.” He believes several factors helped bring dance halls back to life after years of decline. “I think the recession had a lot to do with it,” he said. “When the money went out of everything, dances started to come back. Old halls reopened.
“You could go to a dance for a fiver, hear a live band and have tea, sandwiches and a chat in the middle of it. It was good value and it was social.”
He said changing attitudes to drink-driving and fitness also helped. “Drinking and driving became a thing of the past,” he said. “Most dances are in halls with no bar, so that suited people. At the same time, people were becoming more fitness conscious. All those things came together.”
Mr Flanagan said many people are still intimidated when they see experienced dancers on the floor, but he insists beginners should not be put off. “People say they have two left feet, but it is not like that,” he said. “When I teach, I never tell people left foot or right foot. Once you start saying that, they are gone.
“I just tell them to take three steps to the side, or one step forward and one step back. It is much simpler than people think.” He said the basics can be learned very quickly. “You only really need two dances — a quickstep and a waltz,” he said. “One is four steps and one is three steps. You could learn them in 60 seconds each.
“The people who have been dancing for 50 years are still doing the same dance they learned 50 years ago. It does not get more complicated. You can get up to speed very quickly.”
Since the pandemic, line dancing has also become hugely popular. “Line dancing has become a massive part of it,” he said. “During Covid, when people could not touch each other, we had to turn to line dancing. We marked out the halls with tape and squares and that was the only way to get back.
“But it really took off. In some places now, it is as popular as jiving, or even more popular.” Mr Flanagan, who first learned to dance himself in his 40s, said he understands the nerves beginners feel. “I remember being the one sitting down looking at people dancing,” he said. “I thought I had left it too late. Then I said, if I do not learn now, I never will.
“That is why I always tell people, give it a go. Very quickly, someone will come up to you and say, ‘I would love to be able to do that.’ And you will realise it is not as hard as it looks.”
Mr Flanagan has been involved with Cowboys and Heroes for 11 years and has helped bring large groups from the south-east to Leitrim for the festival. He praised festival organiser Simon Power for building the event into one of Ireland’s biggest country music weekends. “To bring that many people to Drumcoura, year after year, is a huge achievement,” he said.
“Drumcoura is in the middle of nowhere really. There are no shops, no pubs, nothing like that around it. To get that many people there, accommodate them and keep the whole thing running is some achievement.
“Simon has stuck with it. Every year there is something to change or improve, and he keeps adding to it. He is very easy to work with and very accommodating.”
Mr Flanagan said Cowboys and Heroes offers excellent value for music fans, with four days of entertainment and many of Ireland’s top country acts on the bill.
“You get to see all the top bands in Ireland,” he said. “There is a real buzz around the place.” This year’s festival will feature performances from The Tumbling Paddies, Nathan Carter, Derek Ryan, Mike Denver, Michael English, Johnny Brady, Cliona Hagan, Clodagh Lawlor, Gavin Gribben, Paul Kelly and Mick Flavin, among many others.
With jiving, line dancing, live music, competitions and thousands of country fans expected in Leitrim, Mr Flanagan believes Cowboys and Heroes will once again show just how strong the country dancing revival has become.
“It is all good,” he said. “People are dancing, travelling, meeting friends and enjoying themselves. It has become something really special.”