By Bruce Barton

JOE HU/TOWN CRIER At Shoup Park last week, students from the Maguire School of Dance in Los Altos proudly display medals from the Feis Irish Dance Competition in Santa Clara.

Christine Maguire of Los Altos is dancing again and loving it. So are “her kids.”

That’s because students in her newly formed Maguire School of Irish Dance just returned from the Silicon Valley Feis Irish dance competition, held July 23-25 in Santa Clara, with 20 first-, second- and third-place medals.

Maguire, a transplanted native of Ireland, and an accomplished dancer in her own right, looked on proudly at her students who were all smiles as they flashed the gold and bronze medals hanging from their necks. They had competed among 1,000 participants from 36 different Irish dance schools. It was the school’s first competition.

“It’s nice walking around with a bunch of medals,” said Shane Duignan, one of Maguire’s 8-year-old triplet boys who all scored big at the competition.

Shane did particularly well: He won three first-place medals, in the reel, slip jig and single jig; and two second-place medals, in the light jig and hornpipe. His brother, Connor, took first and second in the light jig and reel, respectively. Brother Kenneth took first in the elocution category, reciting a prayer in the Gaelic language.

Other winners were: Lauren Roberts, 6, with a second in the reel and light jig; Serina Rye, 10, with four firsts, in the reel, light jig, slip jig and single jig; Katrina Armistead, 10, with a second in the slip jig and a third in the reel; and Vienna Rye, 12, with three seconds, in the reel, light jig and slip jig, and a third in the single jig category.

Though she acknowledged that the medals are wonderful ego boosts for her students, Maguire also pointed to what she feels are more important goals of teaching Irish dance: building confidence by performing and inspiring camaraderie. She lists among her school’s objectives: “To form friendships that may last a lifetime and span the world.”

“The competitive aspects are wonderful - they learn to win, they learn to lose,” said Maguire, who moved to Los Altos from Ireland in 1994. “But I don’t want the whole focus on the competition.”

She wants her students to pick up on self-esteem and self-confidence through dance that will carry them through other testing grounds in life, as it did for Maguire.

An industrial engineer, she recalled going to job interviews using the same confidence techniques she used for dance performances.

Maguire, who started dancing in Galway, Ireland, at 5, was a third- and fifth-place winner in the Irish dancing world championships and an All Ireland Champion on two occasions. She also danced on several TV shows in Ireland, jigged with the famous Irish group The Chieftains and even performed for President Jimmy Carter at the White House in 1979.

She noted the increasing popularity of the dance worldwide, buoyed by such acts as Riverdance and Lord of the Dance.

Maguire set aside her dance career for 10 years to work as an engineer and then a homemaker to raise her triplets.

She recently resurrected her dance career after dancing in a pub. Realizing how much she missed it, and asked by friends to do some occasional teaching, she started rehearsing again and was inspired to form her own school.

In January, she became a certified teacher of the Irish Dance Commission (Teagascoir Coimisiun le Rinci Gaelacha) after undergoing rigorous testing that included performance and a written test.

She officially started her Los Altos school in March.

Flush from their successful first competition, Maguire’s students are interested in competing at another event in October in Oakland. But she isn’t pushing them. First, she wants the children to “enjoy themselves while working to their full potential,” at the same time inspiring “a love and appreciation for Irish dance.”

“It’s nice,” said Vienna. “I didn’t want ballet. This is athletic, but it’s still a dance.”

“I had no idea what Irish dancing was about,” said Vienna’s mother, Mary, whose children decided on Irish dancing because of Riverdance. “Irish dance is a whole other world - a huge world. There’s so much enthusiasm for this.”

Mary also had high praise for Maguire. “We have a jewel right here in Los Altos,” she said. “We have a world champion dancer from Ireland.”

Maguire’s school rehearses weekly at the American Legion Hall on First Street in Los Altos.

For more information about the Maguire School of Irish Dance, contact Maguire at 961-1895 or chr_maguire@yahoo.com.