Kathleen is an Irish Dance Hall of Famer, inspired choreographer, and teacher of generations upon generations of Irish Dancers, every one of whom she made feel their own importance.

Her dancers performed at Carnegie Hall, the New York Worlds Fair, Irish National TV, New York TV stations, and countless dinner dances and galas. Awards and wins were legion. But Kathleen also took on hundreds, maybe into the thousands, of the non-glamorous shows that brought cheer to many nursing home residents, always willingly and cheerfully, and taught her students how to be generous. Schools throughout Connecticut and the U.S. are directed by teachers that learned the art through Kathleen or Kathleen's students. John Cullinane talked about her in his books. Her latest acknowledgement was just this past March as honoree at the New Haven Parade committee's annual formal at Yale.

She brought six different groups of dancers to tour Ireland. The earlier groups were from a time when travel abroad was out of reach for most of those kids. She broadened the horizons of those students immensely, and all the groups bonded into lifelong friendships.

Kathleen loved to talk, tell stories and lore of Ireland, and sing the songs. She instilled in her students not only a love for dance, but a love for Ireland, and Irish culture and traditions. Her most eloquent language, however, was dance. Her choreographies reached poetry - among them:

         The Four Provinces - evoked, in dance, Ireland's 20th century tragedy;
         The Galway Races - her childlike delight while at the races inspired the dance that captured the excitement, ceremony, and rhythms so perfectly;
         The Celtic Cross - expressed her sheer love of Ireland and her church;
         The Green Berets (She was an Irish-American after all.) - At the height of the Vietnam War, Kathleen again spoke her heart through dance. The "Green Berets" choreography went directly from her heart to the hearts of that audience of early generation Irish immigrants. The first time her dancers performed it at a feis, the judges stood with tears in their eyes and applauded. I never saw that before or since at a feis.

With Kathleen, it was so much more than dance. Besides the baby jig, Derry Threes, Downfall, etc. (and all the "Lady Janes" and "Master McGraths" among you know there's no exaggeration in the following), Kathleen taught the worth of striving to achieve, duty to God and country, loyalty, standing for what's right, and gratefulness for the gifts you had ("be thankful for the two good feet that God gave you"). and ... she taught us how to be late, ... but, by the same token, you never felt she was looking ahead to her next appointment when you were with her, or that you were wasting her time.

And what a discriminating memory! She could rarely remember to ask for receipts for the tax man, but she could recall forever how a dancer moved the wrong way at bar 6 of Madame Bonaparte in 1967 (and I'll never do it again). She arrived when Irish Dancing was still an oral tradition and she had the tribal memory that transmitted the tradition to us of the video-age.

She and the teachers of her generation kept our exuberant, graceful, joyful, brilliant art alive during the lean times. Her dedication was fierce. She brought generations through the leveling winds of culture to keep the best of Irishness intact. We all loved her, and she loved us. People get old and die. But a poet from the land of poets has passed on.

As far as we know, she was the first to bring "The Three Tunes" to America. We hear that in heaven, she has pulled St. Bridget by the ponytail, and paired her with St. Patrick. They have already learned through the first "roly poly".

So Kate, yet one more time, for you,

                     one ... two ... three ....
                                                   bow.

All Rights Reserved, Torrington Feis, 2007

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