21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
'She definitely didn't lick it off the ground': Páidí O'Sé's granddaughter Fiadh, 10, crowned world Irish dancing champion
They say an ounce of breeding is better than a stone of feeding and so it has proven as Páidí Ó Sé's granddaughter Fiadh has become a world Irish dancing champion at the age of 10.
Daughter of Páidí's eldest daughter Neasa and husband Pádraig, Fiadh claimed the discipline's highest prize in the U11 category in the Oireachtas Rince na Cruinne in Dublin last month.
The Fitzgeralds moved to London from Kildare in 2021 and since then Fiadh has won a host of honours at South England regional and Irish national championships before last month's greatest achievement.
'Fiadh had been doing a bit of dancing at home with a guy called Keith Brett and when we moved over, an Irish dancing club was the only thing she wanted to find,' explains Neasa.
Fiadh Fitzgerald with her trophy.
'We found a place in Ealing called Scoil Rince Céim Óir, she started from the beginning with them, moved through the grades quite quickly and qualified for the worlds last year in the south-eastern region.
"The worlds took place in the National Convention Centre at Easter and she won, which was great because she hasn't been dancing for very long, only since six or seven.
'She now dances three or four times a week in the studio with her teacher Hilary Joyce Owens, a Galway woman. Not that she forgot about Ireland but being able to go dancing meant she wasn't as lonely or as homesick.
"She's become very close to the teachers and students and it was a big part of her settling into life in London.'
Needless to say, Neasa sees plenty of her late, great father in Fiadh.
'Oh, stop. She's very driven. She could throw her hand to anything and she just has that fire in the belly. She definitely didn't lick it off the ground.'
