Irish Dance
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50 free Irish Dance trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Irish dance went from parish halls to arenas almost overnight in 1994, when a few minutes of television turned a tightly ruled competitive art into a global craze. Behind the spectacle sits a much older story of travelling teachers, language revivalists, strict rulebooks and a small army of dancers who still spend their weekends chasing medals. This quiz covers the whole of it. Expect questions on Riverdance and Michael Flatley, the stage shows that followed, the soft and hard shoes, the costumes and curls, the names of the dances and the tunes behind them, the instruments that drive a session, and the championships where it all gets decided. A few questions reach back into the history of dancing in Ireland and across the Atlantic. It is pitched for dancers, dance parents and teachers who want to test how much they really know, and for anyone who has watched a line of dancers hammer out a rhythm and wondered how it all works. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the stories as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Riverdance began as a seven-minute interval act during which 1994 television broadcast?
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest put Riverdance in front of about 300 million viewers, and the standing ovation persuaded its producers to build a full stage show within a year.
Q 02Which American stage style grew out of Irish jigs and step dancing meeting African-American juba rhythms?
Tap dance
Tap dance grew from a blended style first known as jigging, which minstrel-show performers both black and white carried onto American stages in the 1800s.
Q 03Michael Flatley became the first American to win a World Irish Dance title after growing up in which city?
Chicago
Chicago is where Flatley took up Irish dance at eleven, at the Dennehy School, and he carried off the world title in 1975.
Q 04The reel, one of the first dances Irish dance students learn, reached Ireland in the late 1700s from which country?
Scotland
Scotland has the earliest record of a reel, from a trial of 1590 in which the accused was said to have danced one.
Q 05Embroidery on Irish dance school dresses is often copied from which medieval manuscript kept at Trinity College Dublin?
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells was sent to Dublin for safekeeping in the 1650s, while Cromwell's cavalry was quartered in the church that held it.
Q 06Which 1997 film features a third-class Irish dance party with jigs and reels played by the band Gaelic Storm?
Titanic
Titanic cast Gaelic Storm, a Santa Monica pub band formed only the year before, as the steerage musicians who play for the below-decks dancing.
Q 07The bouncing ringlets worn by most girls at Irish dance competitions are usually which of these?
Synthetic wigs
Synthetic wigs took over because they are easier and more consistent than curling natural hair, and some dancers choose a shade far from their own.
Q 08In which sport did the Riverdance star Michael Flatley win an amateur championship during the 1970s?
Boxing
Boxing brought Flatley a Golden Gloves championship with five knockout wins, and he toyed with turning professional into the early 1980s.
Q 09Before a 1935 licensing law moved dances indoors, rural Irish communities gathered to dance at which outdoor spot?
Crossroads
Crossroads offered a large cleared space, and the wooden dancing platforms built at some became flashpoints for rival political factions in the early 1930s.
Q 10Which 1996 show did Michael Flatley create after leaving Riverdance, playing a hero who battles Don Dorcha?
Lord of the Dance
Lord of the Dance went from idea to stage in six months, built by Flatley to fill arenas and stadiums instead of traditional theatres.
Q 11Which name for the lace-up soft shoes worn by female Irish dancers is shared with Highland dancing footwear?
Ghillies
Ghillies replaced elastic-strapped pumps in the later 20th century, a low-cut design chosen to show judges the position of a dancer's feet.
Q 12The tips and heels of modern Irish dance hard shoes are made from which material instead of metal?
Fiberglass
Fiberglass came in from the 1980s, and its light weight let dancers jump higher and even balance on the very tips of their toes.
Q 13Which graceful soft-shoe dance in 9/8 time is often called the ballet of Irish dance?
Slip jig
Slip jig steps were once danced only by men, then for several decades only by women, who still dominate the dance in competition.
Q 21What do Irish dancers call the white ribbed legwear that girls wear on stage instead of black tights?
Poodle socks
Poodle socks are sometimes embroidered with gems, while the boys sharing the stage wear plain black ones.
Q 22The Irish Dancing World Championships, first held in Dublin in 1970, traditionally run in the week before which holiday?
Easter
Easter Day itself usually closes the Worlds, which draw thousands of dancers from more than 30 countries.
Q 23Irish set dancing, a social dance for couples, grew out of which French court dance?
Quadrille
Quadrille figures, danced by four couples in a square, were reshaped in rural Ireland into a folk dance of their own, yet language revivalists later discouraged the sets as foreign.
Q 14Which Irish word for a social gathering also names group dances such as The Walls of Limerick?
Céilí
Céilí dances can involve anything from two people to sixteen, and at social evenings a caller may announce each move for newcomers.
Q 15Which Irish word, meaning festival, is the everyday name for a local Irish dance competition?
Feis
Feis events grew out of wider Gaelic festivals, so strictly speaking one would also hold competitions in music and crafts.
Q 16Which goatskin frame drum, struck with a short stick called a tipper, keeps the beat in Irish dance music?
Bodhrán
Bodhrán players press one hand against the inside of the skin to change the pitch, and the earliest tippers were carved from knuckle bone.
Q 17Which Irish bagpipe, named from the word for elbow, is inflated by a bellows under the arm rather than by mouth?
Uilleann pipes
Uilleann pipes sound sweeter and quieter than warpipes, which is why they are often played indoors and almost always sitting down.
Q 18Which Limerick-born composer wrote the Riverdance score and won a Grammy for the cast album in 1997?
Bill Whelan
Bill Whelan had earlier worked with U2 on their album War, and he chose the title Riverdance as an echo of Timedance, a piece he co-wrote in 1981.
Q 19Which Long Island-born dancer created the female lead in Riverdance opposite Michael Flatley in 1994?
Jean Butler
Jean Butler quit her first Irish dance class at six because she hated standing with her arms at her sides, then came back to it at nine.
Q 20Which hard-shoe Irish dance became an official part of Royal Navy training as exercise for sailors at sea?
Hornpipe
Hornpipe steps suited cramped ships: Captain Cook saw the dance as effective exercise for his sailors, and the navy later made it official.
Q 24Which improvised Irish dance from Connemara, performed low to the ground with loose arms, has a name meaning old style?
Sean-nós
Sean-nós dancers traditionally proved their control by performing on a door lifted off its hinges, a tabletop or the top of a barrel.
Q 25Which organisation, founded in 1893 to revive the Irish language, later set up the Irish Dancing Commission?
The Gaelic League
The Gaelic League favoured dances it judged truly Irish, steering teachers away from styles it thought too English or French.
Q 26Which Irish word names both a major Irish dancing championship and the legislature containing the Dáil and Seanad?
Oireachtas
Oireachtas means assembly, and dancers who place well at their regional one qualify for the World Championships.
Q 27Michael Flatley won two All-Ireland titles in the 1970s on which instrument, later a solo spot in his stage shows?
Flute
Flute playing ran alongside his dancing for decades, and in 2011 he released On a Different Note, an album of 25 tracks.
Q 28Michael Flatley's 1998 spectacular Feet of Flames was staged for 25,000 people at which outdoor London venue?
Hyde Park
Hyde Park hosted the one-off show on a four-tier hydraulic stage, with more than 100 dancers filling every level for the finale.
Q 29Which Irish hard-shoe move, striking one heel against the other, did the now-banned bubble heel make far louder?
Click
Click moves grew so loud with the bubble heel, a hollow plastic heel with an inward bulge, that An Coimisiún outlawed it in competition.
Q 30Before trousers became standard, which garment did boys in Irish dance competitions traditionally wear instead?
Kilts
Kilts have given way to black trousers worn with a waistcoat or jacket, often embroidered and studded with crystals.