PLUCK OF THE IRISH

‘Tis the land of scholars and saints, poets and rebels. And yet one of the mysteries of Ireland is how many find a sense of home in its storied culture and history, even if they have no ancestral connection at all. It’s a sort of magic, you might say. That’s how Katie Fitzpatrick describes this sense of “Irishness” she’s felt all her life and that she sees in the young people she teaches at Fitzpatrick School of Irish Dance (FSID). “My Irish roots extend to my great-great grandparents, Michael Devine and Mary McCarthy, who immigrated from Ireland to the U.S. during the famine in the 1800s,” says Fitzpatrick, a native of the western suburbs whose passion for her Irish heritage drew her to Cork, Ireland, for graduate school. “I grew up dancing with one of the largest Irish dance schools in the area, and am thankful to my teacher, Barbara McNulty, for instilling in me a deep respect for traditional Irish dance.” She and husband Emmett, a Lake Forest native who she describes as “100 percent Irish,” moved to Lake Forest in 2019, starting a family that now includes 5-year-old Thomas, 3-year-old Rory, and newborn Mary Eilish, who arrived in late January. “Not a day goes by that I don’t consider myself lucky to raise our kids here,” says Fitzpatrick, a certified Irish dance teacher who opened her school two years ago this month. “We are active in our community, our kids just started preschool, and I have the privilege of teaching Irish dance just blocks away. We couldn’t ask for much more. That being said, this town could use an Irish party once in a while, and that’s what we’re here to bring!” Through her connections to the Irish community (in addition to her work at the Irish Consulate in Chicago, she and husband, Emmett, co-write a business column in the Irish American News) Fitzpatrick has enlisted the support of the Irish government’s Emigrant Support Programme to do just that. On March 17, her FSID will host a St. Patrick’s Day Ceili and party at Gorton Center. Admission is free, and that’s part of the overarching mission for her business—to expand opportunities related to Irish music, dance, arts, and sport for the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff community. “Building a strong community of happy and successful dancers and families connected to the Irish tradition—that is my vision,” explains Fitzpatrick, who also draws from her experience as past Executive Director of the nonprofit Ireland Network Chicago. Some of the students at FSID arrive with generational stories of that proud Irish heritage engrained, much as it was for Fitzpatrick. Others are just smitten with Irish culture. “There is something special about this sport. It requires both strength and grace, soft and heavy shoes, solo and team dancing, performance and competition,” says Fitzpatrick. “I always smile when a parent tells me that their son or daughter with no connection to Ireland ‘just loves to Irish dance.’ That is part of the magic.”