Dancing Masters

There are few records of the activities of the Dancing Masters, however the best known is by Arthur Young, an English geographer, who travelled throughout Ireland in the late 1770s making the following observation.

"Dancing - is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabbin to cabbin, with a piper or blind fiddler; and the pay is sixpence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education." 
(October 1777)
Arthur Young, Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland (1776-1779), p.446.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs, written around 1838, record several references to Dancing Masters. Records of the Parish of Mallusk (County Antrim) state;

"Dancing is a very favourite amusement..... There are still several annual dances in this and the neighbouring districts. Those in the library at the hamlet of Roughfort in the parish of Templepatrick are among the most fashionable and are nicely got up. Among the better description of farmers the assistance and services of a dancing master are indispensable, while among the lower class a few steps accidentally picked up are quite sufficient, with their naturally good taste and ears, to ensure their excelling in this lively accomplishment." 

Records for the Parish of Kilwaughter (County Antrim) state; 

"dancing is the only amusement. There are occasional dances in the farmhouses of the parish, and at present a dancing school has just commenced. It consists of about six pupils, each pay 5s per quarter, chiefly females attend."

An earlier reference to the Dancing Masters is an agreement between Charles Staunton dancing master and William Bailey of Ballincollig, West Cork dated October 1718, where Staunton was to be paid two guineas to teach the children jig minnets, hornpipes and country dances perfectly.
Dr John P. Cullinane, Further Aspects of the History of Irish Dancing, Part 2, 1990, p. 27.

Records of the activities of the general populace are scarce and articles in newspapers generally only recorded activities of the gentry in the period up to WWII. However early newspapers of 18th C include a number advertisements placed by Dancing Masters to attract business from the gentry and nobility.