The History behind Modern Irish Dance Shoes

..with Julian Wild, founder of Corr's Irish Shoes

Modern Irish Dance shoes have come a long way from their origins. One manufacturer stands out for integrating pioneering modern shoe technology in traditional Irish Dance shoes. And if you own a split sole hard shoe, or a split sole soft shoe, or love the foam padding in any of your Irish Dance shoes, or the heel guard, or the inside angle of the toe chip on your hard shoes, you have Julian Wild of Corr’s Irish Dance to thank.

Irish Dance has a long and storied history, dating back millennia. But dedicated Irish Dance footwear is a much more recent development.

According to Melissa Russell, who operates the online Irish culture resource The Emerald Isle, “step dancers in the 18th and 19th centuries wore their Sunday best. Dancers would simply wear the outfit that they normally wore to church and dance bare foot.” And, for dances that necessitated hard shoes, “metal panels and even nails would have been attached to the sole of the dancers own shoes to allow them to make the ‘bangs’ and ‘taps’ required.”

By the mid-20th century, companies began making specialized versions of these shoes that consisted of more-or-less standard leather oxford shoes modified with thick layered leather heels and added toe tips set with specialized tingle nails to produce the sound.