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Dancing at the Killarney Races

"And a little way from the huts, again, you might see (for you could scarcely hear) certain pipers executing their melodies and inviting people to dance.

Anything more lugubrious than the drone of the pipe, or the jig danced to it, or the countenances of the dancers and musicians, I never saw. Round each set of dancers the people formed a ring, in the which the figurantes and coryphees went through their operations. The toes went in and the toes went out; then there came certain mystic figures of hands across, and so forth. I never saw less grace or seemingly less enjoyment - no, not even in a quadrille. The people, however, took a great interest, and it was 'Well done, Tim!' 'Step out, Miss Brady!' and so forth during the dance."

From The Irish Sketch Book of 1842, by William Makepeace Thackeray.

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