An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha

The objective of An Coimisiún is to preserve and promote Irish Dancing, including step dancing, céili dancing and other team dancing, and also to promote the use of the Irish language.

An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha was established by Conradh na Gaeilge – The Gaelic League – in the late nineteen-twenties as a commission for the purpose of examining the organisation of Irish dancing as it existed at that time and to make recommendations as to how it might be better organised in the future.

The body first met in 1927 as a Commission of Enquiry and in 1930 actually met as an authority with the mandate to implement its own recommendations. Having produced a report after almost two years of deliberations Conradh na Gaeilge appointed that same body of people as an authority with a mandate to set about implementing it's recommendations. Tomás ó Faircheallaigh, who was President of An Coimisiún for some 25 years up to his death in 2004, was the last surviving member of that original commission. In the today’s world of Irish Dancing, it is hard to imagine what it must have been like in the nineteen-thirties. It was An Coimisiún which first established a standard for teachers, and later for adjudicators, of Irish dancing, published a handbook of Céilí dances, and established Oireachtas an Rince, as it was then known, as a separate event. The All Ireland Irish Dancing Championships continue to occupy a special place in the hearts of all those involved in the promotion of our Irish Step dancing, Ceili and Figure Dancing. So many of the things we take for granted, like the international dimension of Irish Dancing, with nine Regional Councils overseeing a vibrant Irish dancing scene in Ireland and Britain and organisations such as the I.D.T.A.N.A. in North America, R.T.M.E. in Mainland Europe, A.I.D.A. in Australia and T.I.D.A.N.Z. in New Zealand carrying on the work of promoting Irish Dancing, could not have happened without the forethought and dedication of those early pioneering members of An Coimisiun le Rinci Gaelacha.

The influence of An Coimisiún continues to spread throughout all five continents, and we now have active teachers of Irish Dancing not only in countries where the traditional Irish diaspora settled, Great Britain, North America, and Australasia, but also throughout continental Europe, in South Africa and as far away as South America.

connection with Ireland. This momentous event took place just two weeks after Oireachtas Rince na Cruinne had celebrated its 25th annivarsary in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin. The runaway success of the subsequent Riverdance-the-Show followed by the phenomenal success of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance in 1996 placed Irish Dancing in a place it had never been before. By the end of the millennium Irish Dance was in demand all around the globe.

One of the important tasks undertaken by the early pioneers of An Coimisiun was the publication of a handbook of ten Ceili Dances in 1939. In subsequent years two more handbooks were published, and all three were later combined in one volume, the study of which has become a requirement for persons aspiring to become teachers of Irish Dancing. In 2014 An Coimisiun commissioned a complete revamp of this publication, and produced a DVD to illustrate the entire thirty dances. This publication will become the official handbook for all events from September 2015 onward.