Posted on 10/03/2013 7:36:31 AM PDT by BenLurkin
LAGUNA NIGUEL (CBSLA.com) — A Southern California teenager has accomplished a feat that hasn’t been done in 14 years.
Kaylee Finnegan, 15, has become the first American to win a Scottish highland world championship in the 21st century, beating out hundreds of the world’s best competitors in the 12-15 year age group for highland dancing.
Finnegan, who picked up Scottish highland dancing at the age of three, explains that the moves involved add up to match some of the world’s toughest physically demanding competitions.
“One of our dances in the equivalent of sprinting a mile, at the same time as wearing a seven-to-ten pound wool kilt, and smiling with your arms above your head,” Finnegan said.
Kaylee’s mother, who was born in Scotland, was the inspiration for her daughter after performing in competitions.
“She loved it,” Kaylee’s mother Phyllis Finnegan said. “She loved the audience and clapping, and being out there and experimenting with it. She just loved it. She hasn’t stopped loving it since then.”
Kaylee began competing a couple of years after picking the dance up. Now, in the middle of her teenage years, she can call herself a world champion.
“At first it was just disbelief, because I had been working toward it for so long so many years, and I almost wouldn’t let myself believe it,” Finnegan said of her championship.
Among the many cups and trophies in Kaylee’s room is the first Scottish World Championship cup that anyone from California has ever won.
Only five Americans have ever taken the cup home since 1910.
“It’s not easily given to Americans, we have to work for it,” Finnegan said. “And it’s nice to know that Americans can do it, and I can show that to the next generation.”
If it’s not Scottish , it’s crap!
Perhaps, but isn’t Finnegan an Irish name?
There was a movie about this.
Oh, wait, no, nevermind. If it ain’t twerking or rapping, it ain’t hip, and Hollywood doesn’t give a crap. All dance movies must be about pretty white girls learning to rap and break dance with the homies.
Sure sounds like
Perhaps they are Irish ancestry. Many Irish moved to Scotland during the Industrial Revolution. You have the Catholic Irish backers of Celtic vs. Protestant backers of Rangers in Glasgow.
OK... it involves swords. But still, not exactly a beautiful form of dance.
It is an Irish name but there are lots of Irish in Scotland.
I’m confused. Celtics play basketball, but the Rangers play hockey. (/clueless)
Scotland derives its name from the Scoti tribe of Ireland. In a sense, the Irish invented the Scots. :^]
You’d better duck!
But only the Scots could invent haggis. Although, I was at a dinner celebrating the great poet Robbie Burns and tried the haggis. It wasn’t half bad. Especially with a wee dram of single malt. OK, it was more than a wee one!
YES!!
A round of haggis for everyone!
Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach and simmered for approximately three hours.
I enjoyed the haggis I tried, though to me it tasted like no more than minced mutton with barley. It was a bit salty, but good. I’d eat it again.
“It is an Irish name but there are lots of Irish in Scotland.
Scotland derives its name from the Scoti tribe of Ireland. In a sense, the Irish invented the Scots.”
And why wouldn’t they have? We invented Scotch too. :-)
Although I prefer Tullamore DEW.
Eire-Scottish, lol? One good turn deserves another, I guess.
In Glasgow Scotland the two big soccer clubs are Celtics and Rangers. The Irish ancestry Roman Catholics in Glasgow support Celtics while the Protestants support Rangers. The religious aspect makes in one of the nastier rivalries in sports.
Hard to say exact numbers but around 15% of Scotland are Catholics most of those have Irish ancestry. From wikipedia:
Famous Irish-Scots include Socialist revolutionary James Connolly, author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, footballers Aiden McGeady, Ray Houghton, Owen Coyle and James McCarthy, politician George Galloway, actors Sean Connery, Brian Cox, Gerard Butler, and comedians Billy Connolly and Frankie Boyle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish-Scots
My people are Celts and were there before the Scots arrived. That’s why we don’t have “Mac” before our Clan name.
It is said in Scotland, that we were the first to raise smoke and boil water on the braes of Glenorchy.
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