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Celebrating over 8 years of success in Europe.
Celebrating over 8 years of success in Europe. 1024 768 McGL Team

McGL CELEBRATING Over 8 years of success in Europe.

Classes now held in
Czech Republic, Poland & Ukraine

 

For over 8 years our McGL Europe contingent has been growing and developing, with classes across Czech Republic and Poland.

During this time we have seen an accolade of achievements from beginners working through their grades to Aishling Award winners, European Oireachtas Titles and Top 10 World Championship placings.

We could not be prouder of the progress our dancers in Europe are making and their achievements are a testament to their hard work and dedication.

Fast forward to 2024 which saw the exciting expansion of our McGL Europe family with the opening of our newest McGL branch – McGL Ukraine. This will be the first active CLRG dance academy within the Ukraine and we hope we can bring a bit of normality on what are still extremely difficult times for their Nation. We cannot wait to see what the future holds for our newest group of dancers.

As members of RCCEA, we are proud to host our annual McGahan Lees Prague Feis and CLRG Grade Examinations, welcoming dancers from all over Europe which always promises to be an excellent display of dancing. Check back here soon for details of our 2024 feis!

We are so proud of how far we have come and can’t wait to see what the future holds for McGL Europe.

Classes now held in Poland (Warsaw, Krakow, Gliwice, Gdańsk, Jastrzębie Zdrój, Pobiedziska), Prague and Ukraine. For more information on our classes in these locations please enquire here.

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Aspire Costume Competition
Aspire Costume Competition 724 1024 McGL Team

We were fortunate enough to offer an amazing competition to the school where the winner could win their very own fabulous designed and fitted Aspire solo costume. All they had to do was finish the following sentence:

“I would like to win one of Gavin’s costumes because….”

We had some really amazing entries from our dancers which were very inspiring to read and very hard to choose between, however the winner was Hannah Ferry-Walsh and here is her winning entry:

I would like to win one of Gavin’s costumes because I think I have worked really hard throughout lockdown, attending every zoom class I could, even though I don’t have anywhere to dance as I live in a flat and have neighbours below me. My mum and dad helped set up an area outside on the days I had class, helping me to show up and push myself with every session, not wanting to let lockdown ruin all the progress I’d made in the months before – literally the only thing that stopped me from going outside for these classes with Frances and the other teachers, was thunder storms!!

It taught me a lot, pushing myself like that, even though some days I didn’t think I could or I wondered if it was going to make a difference, doing dance class myself with no one “really” watching me. I had to become the person making myself focus.

And all of that hard worked paid off, as, in the recent online feis my dance academy took part in, I received 1st place in my hornpipe intermediate dance – this was a huge win for me!! Thank you for the chance to win the dress. Stay safe during lockdown😊
– Hannah Ferry-Walsh – 12 years old


Congratulations to all that entered, however a huge congratulations to Hannah for her hardwork, determination and fabulous answer! Enjoy your new Aspire costume Hannah – we cannot wait to see it on stage!

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A wonderful new addition to the McGL teaching team
A wonderful new addition to the McGL teaching team 765 609 McGL Team

We are delighted to announce that Fiona Mackey TCRG, has joined the McGL Family.

Fiona started dancing at the age of four with the Maguire O’Shea Academy. She won the Southern England Regional Oireachtas three times and went on to become a top 10 medal holder in the World, British Nationals, Great Britain and All Ireland Championships.

Fiona passed her TCRG in 2001 and loves passing on her passion of Irish dance to new dancers.

Fiona will continue to take her classes in the Barnet/Finchley location whilst joining other McGL classes during the week.

For more information please contact Fiona at 07985415421 and fionaharan@hotmail.co.uk.

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Drop-in schoolwork help
Drop-in schoolwork help 819 1024 McGL Team

Another lockdown in England brings yet more worry to many of our parents/students whilst homeschooling. We have assembled our #mcglfamily in the hopes of helping with any home learning struggles that our #teammcgl may face. We have some amazing, qualified volunteers to offer some much needed support. We are truly grateful to all of you for giving up your time for our dancers in need.

We are incredibly lucky to have you all!

#irishdancefamily #homeed #homeschooling #virtualeducation #irishdancesupport

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St. Patrick’s Day 2021
St. Patrick’s Day 2021 1024 1024 McGL Team

☘️ HAPPY ST PATRICK’S DAY ☘️

In celebration and honour of our most favourite day and night of exhibitions, showcasing our hard work and talent, we have put together a small group of photos and videos from over the years. From performing in O’Neill’s pubs, the United Brethren to Trafalgar Square’s main stage and our numerous television appearances – we cannot believe that 1 year on we are still unable to get out and celebrate this fabulous day doing what we do best; however, that will not stop us celebrating and enjoying the day together as Team McGL 🎉

💛🖤 S H O W T I M E 🖤💛

We also LOVED creating this showpiece for our Zoom St Patrick’s day party! It’s actually left us feeling very emotional.

We honestly don’t know what we would have done without our #mcglfamily this past year. We are very grateful to have every single dancer, parent, friend and colleague in our lives!

Fingers crossed that the next time we all meet will be in person!!

A huge thank you to the Feis App team for giving us permission to use their music too!

#feistheapp #teammcgl #mcgl #irishdancing #zoomshow #showtime

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Supporting local food banks during lockdown
Supporting local food banks during lockdown 1024 1024 McGL Team

The free school meal vouchers really highlighted the lack of food shortages in our communities. So, we thought that we would try and help. We did collections at all our dance locations and supported food banks in our areas:

Colchester
Chelmsford
Kent
Oxford

To be able to help so many people across multiple locations is so humbling and we couldn’t have done it without our MCGL families 💛 thank you all for your amazing generosity!

MCGLfamily #Foodbank #Christmas2020 #Feb2021 #Grateful

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Remembering Siobhán
Remembering Siobhán 1024 1024 McGL Team

Children with Cancer UK

Friday 30th October 2020 MCGL joined other schools in Southern England Region to take part in a danceathon whether in class or virtually – in memory of Siobhán Mather, who lost her battle against cancer and whose sister dances at another dancing school in our Region – by supporting Children with Cancer UK. We are so proud of our dancers enthusiasm and generosity to raise money for a charity which is close to all our hearts!

All our dancers were amazing and raised over £1300 for Children with Cancer UK!

Supporting our wider dance community is so important to us, so a HUGE thank you to everyone that donated.
We will always remember Siobhán.

#rememberingsiobhán

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Live Online Class Feiseanna
Live Online Class Feiseanna 1024 1024 McGL Team

As lockdown 3.0 drags on, we scratch our live performance itch

As we’ve bounced in and out of lockdown the biggest thing our dancers have missed is the competitions and the camaraderie it brings.

Whilst this cannot be replicated we set about creating online events (3 over the various lockdowns) bringing together dancers from McGL in the UK, Goggin Carroll in Canada and Scoil Rince Creer in New South Wales, Australia.

As we were online, we were able to invite adjudicators from the UK, Ireland and North America. The judging was real time (subject to the dreaded internet) with our adjudicators able to present their results via google forms linking it to the McGL Feis Scoring software Feismark. This also allowed for each adjudicator to complete provide excellent written feedback.

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A very different Christmas Feis
A very different Christmas Feis 1024 1024 McGL Team

With social distancing measures ongoing our Christmas Feis was different this year. Thankfully a relaxation on the guidelines allowed the event to take place but with limited numbers, all socially distanced and with regular cleaning all day.

However we all managed to stay safe and even Santa himself was able to send a personal message to all our dancers.

A massive well done to everyone who took part especially our 4 Champions, namely

Under 6 – Grace Partlett

Under 8 – Aoife Malaugh

Under 10 – Niamh McLellan

Over 10 – Isabel Stoker

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26000 bar challenge for Cancer Research UK
26000 bar challenge for Cancer Research UK 1024 1024 McGL Team

Like so many charities CRUK has been massively affected by the Pandemic. Each year charities like these have millions raised by runners completing the gruelling 26 miles of the London Marathon. Like so many events, the 2020 Marathon was cancelled but to replace this McGL joined in the charities 2.6 Challenge. Our target was to dance 26,000 bars of a reel with all our dancers online. Well, we beat the challenge and in doing so managed to raise £6,211, meaning we were in the charity’s top 10 online donators via Just Giving.

We were delighted to raise these funds especially due to the cancellation of the John Flannagan Memorial Feis in 2020. This Feis is held annually and currently the only charity feis held on our region. We are delighted that we are able to play a special role on hosting this event on behalf of the organiser and McGL Teacher/Adjudicator Marion Flannagan.

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