Merchant Set

This week we learned the Merchant Set a relatively new dance developed in Dublin, a city not otherwise known for sets.  It's a modern set, created in 2011, a testament to the resurgence of set dance in Ireland.  It was named for a pub in the City Center by Pádraig & Róisín McEneany (Patrick and Roseann) who taught at that pub for many years.  Ironically, as my set dance teacher informed us this week, shortly after it was completed, the pub discontinued set dance as a regular feature on Mondays. Here is a link to the written instructions for the dance: https://danceminder.com/dance/show/mercha  .  If you look at the instructions you can see some of the commonalities in all set dance:  'advance/retire' 'house' and 'swing' are found in almost every set.  This is what makes set dance fairly easy to learn.  While it's always fast, the steps endure.

Since this is a Dublin set, I've been musing on why this city so appeals to me. My first trip to Dublin was in 1967 and still remember the feeling of romance and history I felt then. Walking across the Liffey River over the O'Connell bridge when I was 19 is so vivid to me even 50 years later. To top it off, I met an Irish boy who was attracted to my youth and American accent and we spent the day walking around Dublin with him showing me the sights.  It turned out he was a train conductor and was able to tell me how to get to my father's home town (Moate, Co. Westmeath) on the train and the hotel to stay in while I was there. Years later, I'm sorry I didn't note his name, he's probably still living in Dublin and we could have kept in touch.

As I said in my first post of this visit, one of the great things about Ireland is the friendliness and curiosity of the people and, even with the smallest effort, one can make fast friends as I have.  Upcoming tomorrow is a little trip south to Carlow with a group of 10 of them.  We will stay overnight in a hotel and walk in two directions on the River Barrow. http://riverbarrow.net/barrow-way.html

We will walk south to Milford on Saturday and north to Athy on Sunday.  I've arranged the hotel and the meals and I'm hoping all goes OK with it.  My friends are all very excited to do the trip, we hope there will be no rain.  The hotel actually is arranging the lunch and they will bring a table, linens, real silverware and chairs to the mill at the halfway point on both days. If you have seen the movie just out now, Victoria and Abdul, I'm thinking it will be akin to the scene in which Victoria decided to have lunch on the top of a mountain in Scotland, maybe a little less grand, but certainly more than I've ever experienced on any other walk here or elsewhere.  This is the kind of treatment we needed on the halfway point on the Bright Angel trail in The Grand Canyon!