Ceilidh

The fire in the centre of the room was almost a necessity of the good old Ceilidh days. When the people congregated in the evening, the circle could be extended to the full capacity of the room, and occasionally it became necessary to have a circle within a circle. […] The circle became extended by merely pushing back the seats, and this arrangement became absolutely necessary in the houses which were most celebrated as the great Ceilidh centres of the district. The Ceilidh rendezvous is the house in which all the Folk-lore of the country, all the old sgculachdan or stories, the ancient poetry known to the bards or Seanachaidhean, and old riddles and proverbs are recited from night to night by old and young.

[A]ll the details of it are recited with minute exactness around the fireside during the winter ceilidhean.

These happy and informative ceilidhean are past, and we are the poorer.

Traditionally, while the men were away fishing, the women would gather in the evening for a ceilidh where they would sew and sing or talk and then finish with tea. But in an older informant's memory, ceilidhean became less frequent after World War I.

Members of the College contributed to the enjoyment at local ceilidhs by playing the pipes and supplying an accordionist and a fiddler and dancers.

The event proved that most of those who loved to attend ceilidhean, to attend the Mods and join in the chorus of "Suas leis a' Ghaidhlig" were not prepared to lay out the penny a week which would have brought to their doors the only wholly-Gaelic newspaper ever published in this country.

We went to a pub huddled in a corner, sitting close together to hear one another over the noise of the ceilidh band playing.

Looking for the Possible Dance [by Alison Louise Kennedy] sets up the 'dance', the ceilidh, as a site of personal and possibly national salvation, but one plagued by insecurities.