1984

Video for Breakdancing on the streets of Limerick 1984

At occasional Cheebah team meetings over the last four years, many projects are talked about. One that is always pencilled in is to get the above footage from 'Reelin in the years' and put it up on youtube and start trying to find out more about the particiapants.

Well finally somebody else has done it. I know that on a thread over at the limerick Blogger a few years ago this was mentioned and some names came out. However those comments are now deleted so if you can shine light on those involved we would love to hear more. Comment below.

UPDATE: Thanks to Colz and Cool C for the comments below. Keep them coming. Colz has also written a great personal account of why 84-85 was so important to many Irish youth. Unsurprisingly not everyone liked Dizzy Footwork. They were once referred to in a Dáil debate in 85. The speaker was Ned O Keeffe, Cork FF TD who would later become famous over his concern about "Babe" and its effects on the Irish Bacon industry and more recently for this outburst. Back in 85 Ned was talking about the need for Youth training and employment skills. He declared that skills like that of the tinsmith should be preserved and then went onto attack an event. The event was called the 'Youth Year Roadshow'  and Ned maintained that it

"is an insult to our youth. Among the Roadshow's many features are... a... breakdancing performances by the Mars breakdancing team — Dizzy Footwork.That is demeaning our youth and is an insult to them"  !! (full transcripts)

This was the only reference ever to breakdancing in the history of the Dáil. Coincidentally, Ned's constituency colleague Sean Sherlock (Labour) made the only reference to hip hop.

Shane

Comments

[Cool C]

Me and moonlight always believed that it was the DIZZY FOOTWORK crew as also seen on the LATE LATE the same year if I'm not mistaken. Have not seen the LATE LATE footage since. Link me if yis track that bit down...

Cool - C

[colz]

Defo dizzy footwork!

[twitter.com/soulshenanigans]

Fantastic stuff Shane!

[rask]

thats awesome great to see..many people forget that ireland has had hip hop culture alive and kicking for well over 25 years now..

[Paul Tarpey]

Talking to one old skool limerick head ( Derek Cluskey) about taping cardboard from the white goods from shops for break mats in the 80s ..he said the kids knew and used slang names like Hotpoint and Zanussi without exactly knowing what they ment as there wasnt fancy gear like that in the kitchens of Ballinacurra in those times. Classic tale goes to the man like Quinny. After Beatstreet (the Film) came to town he caught the fever so much he asked for one of the characters names to be considered as his confirmation name. The local priest had to tell him-after research- that there was no saint by the name of 'Ozone' and prehaps he should consider another name. Dammm.