Episode 38: Fiddlers, Singers, and Step Dancers: Traditional Culture in a Modern City

Music featured prominently at Irish community events all the way back to the first St. Patrick's Day Banquet in 1842. But traditional Irish music and dance really came to the fore in Cleveland in the 1920s and 1930s. The immigrants of the 1920s were the first generation to experience the full impact of the late-nineteenth-century revival of interest in the Irish language and traditional Irish culture, including folklore, sports, music, and dance. Irish "folk dancing" was featured at the Theater of Nations circa 1930. Also in 1930, a weekly radio show featuring Irish music was launched, hosted by Mary K. Duffy and featuring tenor Dick O'Heren and the Irish Ensemble with accordion player Johnny McNea. The West Side Irish American Club also began a fife and drum band in the 1930s. Fiddler Tom Scott began teaching Irish dancing in Cleveland in the 1940s. The 1950s wave of immigration continued to boost the traditional Irish music and dance scene in Cleveland, and it's still going strong today.