Two Dances from County Clare

This week and last we devoted our time to dances from County Clare, in the west of Ireland, highlighted on the top map.

To give you a little orientation, I've added the second map that shows the counties by province. On it you can see Dublin is the smaller county all the way to the east in the province of Leinster.  My father's family came from Westmeath, also in Leinster west of Dublin. Donegal is the big county with the long border with Northern Ireland (in pink) to its east, in the province of Ulster. My mother's family is found near the apex of the triangular bay in south Donegal.

Clare is in Munster, a province that I haven't traveled in too much, although I've been to the both of the larger cities there, Cork and Limerick.  It's ironic because most people that visit Ireland go to Munster, visiting the Ring of Kerry an area that I did only once on a too long bus trip that I wouldn't recommend.

But, back to Clare for the sets we covered this and last week.  First was the Caledonian, a pretty fancy (but clear) rendition of the fifth and final figure in that set is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl0EP4kYdXA .

The second set was The Clare Lancers.  This was a fun one that wasn't too hard to learn and dance.  Here's the 4th figure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ih5M-ge60c

I searched and searched for some history about both dances and couldn't find a thing about how they evolved or why they were named.  The 'Lancers' makes some sense because you can see some military-like formations, but association of The Caledonian is not clear. "Caledonia" is the traditional name for Scotland as "Hibernia" is Ireland.  It seems to have something to do with the high kings in Celtic mythology.

I'm in my last month here.  Alan will come for Thanksgiving and his birthday on November 23 (Thanksgiving day) to November 30.  I've booked a nice two-bedroom apartment for us and friends from Bloomington who will also be here for the week.  We were planning a large Thanksgiving dinner, but that plan has fallen through because ill health of friends and family members of several of the families invited. Such is life.  I will be sad to leave, but happy to see my friends (especially in Atlanta),  the dog and our house.  Why can't I transport all of that here?