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John Fitzgerald performing in front of Prince Charles on Tuesday.
A SIAMSA Tíre dancer performed for Prince Charles on his visit to Galway yesterday.
John Fitzgerald, a native of Brandon, and other dancers gave the Royal visitor a traditional Irish welcome with a sample of Irish dancing at NUI Galway.
John began learning Irish dancing from the age of six with Rinceoirí Na Riochta in Tralee and joined Siamsa Tire a year later.
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Since then he has won major titles at Munster, All-Ireland, British National, and European Championship level. He won three ‘World Irish Dancing Championship’ titles in Belfast 2006, 2008, and Glasgow 2010.
Now a qualified physiotherapist in Dublin, John has performed in many Siamsa productions over the years such as ‘Oileán’, ‘Clann Lir’, ‘Fadó Fadó’, ‘Turas’ and ‘Tearmann’ in the annual summer seasons. He was involved in the latest production of ‘Fadó Fadó’ up last Friday and is expected to return to the Tralee at some stage during the summer.
“John’s talent was clear from an early age,” said Artistic Director at Siamsa Tire, Jonathan Kelliher, who said they were all proud of John.
“I remember he was in ‘Tearmann’ many years ago and not only was he an amazing dancer, but he was a great actor as well and he was only six or seven at the time. He has great stage charisma and is a very humble man about his achievements,” he said.
As can be seen in the video below, John – who can be seen clearly from 0.25 to 0.40 – gives a fine performance for Prince Charles, his wife Camilla and the Tánaiste Joan Burton.
Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla have been greeted by a number of Irish dancers at NUI Galway
Posted by RTÉ News on Tuesday, May 19, 2015
