High Caul Cap

Dancers hold a square of four couples and move in and out of a closed ring, with advance and retire taken on the promenade step and travel around the ring taken on the sidestep, leading with one foot and closing behind. The carriage is upright with the arms held down at the sides in the taught style, the turnout is maintained and the elevation comes from the ankles rather than from the knees or the body. Turns are taken in two hands with the couple pulling slightly against each other to hold the centre, and the recurring ring formation means dancers are constantly opening the square out and closing it again.

A set dance for four couples, not a couple dance. You turn and travel with your partner, but you also work with the opposite and with the couples on either side, and the shape of the dance is held by the whole group rather than by any pair.

This one has a real competitive life. Ceili and figure team competitions at feiseanna, and at regional and world championships, draw on a prescribed list of ceili dances, and eight-hand dances of this kind appear regularly; teams rehearse for months and are marked on timing, formation, uniformity of footwork and carriage. Competition demands the standardised version exactly as published, with arms held at the sides and no local embellishment, which is a stricter proposition than the same dance at a social ceili.

The main split is not geographic but between the standardised competition version and the looser social version danced at ceilithe, where simplified steps and slightly different figure handling are tolerated. Diaspora teaching follows the standard closely, because it feeds the same competitive circuit. Older local practice in Ireland admitted variation in figure order and in which movements made up the body, and traces of that survive in social settings.

The name causes most of the confusion: it refers to a style of woman's cap and to the jig tune, not to anything worn or carried while dancing, and the Irish title is a separate name rather than a translation. It is also sometimes mistaken for a couple dance, when it is a four-couple figure dance. Any account connecting it to twentieth-century partner-dance material or to social club dancing is describing a different dance entirely.