Siobhan was very active in Irish Dancing from age 5 to age 18. She explained the legend about the origin of Irish dance:

“I’m not sure if this is like proven or whatever, but I think like the um discussed cause of Irish Dancing is um… like Irish people in their houses, there was a rule that they couldn’t dance and it was like, the English monarchy or whatever was like ‘Yea, you can’t dance’ and like had rules for it. So like the Irish people were… they would like keep this upright posture so that if you look in the window it looked like they weren’t dancing, but their feet would just be like dancing, and they’d be dancing with each other. So that’s like, where the really rigid posture came about and that’s like stayed in Irish dance. It’s like flying feet everywhere but you have this rigid posture the whole time. So that’s…. where the roots come from.”

With this narrative in mind, Irish dance may be a source of national pride for Irish people, as it distinguishes them from the English. Not only is it an attempt to explain the aesthetics of the dance, including fast-paced foot movement with a rigid, upright posture, but it explains national ties.