MOTHER-DAUGHTER DOUBLE

On the day of her first Irish dance lesson in a basement at a Chicago church 37 years ago, a 9-year-old from Evanston named Michaela was ordered to go to a corner in the room.

But not because she had gotten into trouble.

“I was old for a beginner,” recalls Michaela McGarry Donohue, now a 46-year-old resident of Highland Park and the mother of three. “Most Irish dancers start learning at the age of 5 or 6. Three or four other inexperienced dancers on that day went to the corner with me to receive instruction from a driller, who was a teen.

“We were taught jig steps while the experienced kids did their thing.”

Some 10 years later, in 1998, the then- 19-year-old Michaela, along with 15 Trinity Academy of Irish Dance competitors in the Team Choreography senior division (18 and older), was the center of attention in Ennis, Ireland, at the World Championships of Irish Dance.

The group had captured gold after dancing to “The Dawn.”

“I was shy. Irish dance brought me out of my shell,” says Donohue, who teaches at Elmhurst-based Trinity Academy of Irish Dance and has served as the academy’s team program manager since 2021. “I was thrilled and excited when a driller told me all those years ago, ‘I think you’re pretty good at this.’ Irish dance allows young performers to stand on stage and be counted, which is something Trinity’s founder (and principal choreographer), Mark Howard, likes to say.

“Irish Dance,” she adds, “also boosts selfesteem.”

In April, on a stage in Glasgow, Scotland, 16 members of Trinity’s junior (16 and under) Choreography Team performed to none other “The Dawn”—an enhanced version—at the World Championships of Irish Dance, after having trained together for 100 hours since December 2023 under the direction of Donohue, Chicago’s MacKenzie Holland, Milwaukee’s Deirdra Kelly, and Palatine’s Deirdre Vrbancic.

They completed their final 15 hours of training in Scotland.

They, too, won World gold, upping the academy’s overall haul of such medals to 14 since a Trinity troupe claimed the first top prize in 1987.

Among the newly minted champions last month was 14-year-old Izzy Donohue—Michaela’s daughter, who took her first Irish dance lesson at the age of 3.

“They were beautiful, determined, and decisive,” says Donohue, who’s also raising sons PJ, 16, and Gabe, 11, with her husband, Sean, who’s as rabid about power plays in hockey as his wife is about treble jigs in Irish dance. “They are an extraordinary group of young women that will go on to achieve great things in dance and in life.

“Soon after the announcement,” she continues, “I looked at my daughter and told her, ‘You’re a world champion!’”

Michaela’s road to her gold began the same year she had escaped that church basement corner because of her talent and ability to learn quickly. The future world champ joined other Irish dancers for a performance on WGN’s The Bozo Show.

Donohue was an 11-year-old sixth-grader when she helped a Trinity team garner bronze (13-and-under division) in her first appearance at a World Championship event. She retired from competitive dance at the age of 20.

“My mother (Rie) immersed herself into Irish dance and drove me all over the Midwest for dance competitions after she saw how much I enjoyed the art,” says Donohue, who tried swimming competitively for a spell but looked for another outlet after concluding, “I could swim the breaststroke, but barely. I also remember asking my mom, after my first Irish dance lesson, ‘Could I go back there for another lesson? This is going to be my thing.’”

Rie, whose husband, Joe, died when Michaela was 18, became a chaperone and volunteer costume seamstress for the Trinity Irish Dance Company and later served as the company’s full-time seamstress for 25 years.

Michaela attended Loyola Academy in Wilmette in her junior and senior years and graduated in the academy’s second year (1996) as a co-educational college preparatory school, before enrolling at Loyola University-Chicago, where she earned a degree in Developmental Psychology. Donohue received her master’s in Elementary Education at DePaul University in Chicago.

“I love what I do at Trinity,” she says. “I’m very passionate about what I do in Irish dance. To me, it’s incredibly important to learn how to collaborate at a young age. Dancers on a team put aside their personal wants and needs and are a part of something bigger than themselves. Part of our mission at Trinity is using dance to build amazing humans. Our dancers are doing what they love to do and making the world better through their performances.”

Tiny mistakes are made in every performance on a stage, she notes. But those are perfect opportunities to grow and learn, no matter the age of the dancer.

“A dancer,” Donohue says, “could get distracted for just a second, which could lead to a misstep. We, as dancers, have all been there. But that could turn out to be a good thing because a dancer who remains positive after a mistake sets a wonderful example for the rest of the team.”

In addition to its fine reputation and impressive track record of national and international success, Trinity aims “to elevate children, the community, and the world through the power and grace of Irish dance,” according to its mission. Trinity instructors focus on the importance of having fun while developing self-respect and confidence.

“There’s incredible authenticity in Irish dance,” Donohue says. “It’s important to find ways to move the art forward and not make it about flash. What we like to tell our competitive dancers, and this is one of Mark Howard’s favorite reminders, is, ‘How many people get to do something they love to do at a world level?’ We then add, ‘Consider it an honor to perform on that stage. Do that and you get to walk away happy.’”

For more information, visit trinityirishdance.com.