This year marks ten years of Celtic Steps The Show and the Irish Music and Dance Show kicked off their season in style with a sensational Launch Party on Friday last at their home of the Killarney Racecourse.

Cathaoirleach Killarney Municipal District Cllr Niall Kelleher David Rea Director Celtic Steps Brenda Doyle and Toddy Doyle Muckross Traditional Farms at Celtic Steps the Show at a special launch to celebrate their 10th anniversary and opening of their opening season 2023 at Killarney Racecourse on Friday night. Photo: Valerie O'Sullivan

Members of Celtic Steps the Show celebrating their 10th anniversary at a special launch of their opening season 2023 at Killarney Racecourse on Friday night. Included are Shannon Flanagan Holly Duffy Erin Grace Cooke Sean Slemon David Pyke and Peig O'Connor. Photo: Valerie O'Sullivan

Terrence Mulcahy Director Killarney Racecourse Ailish Mulcahy Bridie Brosnan Niall Brosnan at Celtic Steps the Show at a special launch to celebrate their 10th anniversary and opening of their opening season 2023 at Killarney Racecourse on Friday night. Photo: Valerie O'Sullivan

The event was attended by a variety of local businesspeople and politicians as well as media and some of Kerry’s most popular personalities.
Their Guests were treated to a lively trad set by the Celtic Steps Band while mingling and enjoying some drinks and canapes.
The Pre-Show Celebration was concluded with a heartfelt speech from David Rea & Sean Murphy, Co-Directors who took a walk down memory lane and talked about the Show’s humble beginnings and inspiring journey.
Sean Murphy remembered how Celtic Steps commenced in the summer of 2012, in the Mangerton Suite of The Gleneagle Hotel “in more hope than certainty that there was space for another Irish Dance and Music Show”. What transpired was a show that combined the best of Kerry’s culture and folklore through song and embodied a strong belief in displaying all styles of Irish dance, not just the more commonly accepted examples in many shows
nowadays.
It quickly became apparent that both locals and tourists were engaged by the natural, raw and live synergy that the dancers and musicians brought to the stage.
With its core ethos firmly honed on employing local talent, currently numbering 40-50 employees, Celtic Steps exploded through its first few very successful seasons in its new home at the INEC, Gleneagle.
As tourism grew even bigger up to 2019, the Show kept up its side of the bargain and
partnering with some of the world’s biggest inbound operators continued to trend upwards in audience numbers to where it regularly plays to four hundred people nightly in the high season, in a state-of-the-art theatre at Killarney Racecourse which has been home since 2017.
In 2019, the Show opened a second nightly performance at the Brandon Hotel Conference Centre, where now Celtic Steps runs both during the period from May to October, doubling staff numbers and offering visitors to Kerry, an experience unsurpassed in visitor attractions.
Post pandemic, the Show has now re-positioned itself as one of the top visitor and local night-time entertainment options throughout a long season performing just under three hundred concerts in County Kerry and now travelling internationally, back to Holland for a full month of Christmas shows in December 2023 on the back of a hugely successful 2022 tour.
Throughout the 21 shows in The Netherlands this year, they will personally sell to over 15,000 Dutch attendees nightly, playing in twenty-one different venues across the country.
“It has been an amazing journey to do something that you love nightly, however it would have been impossible without the local support of businesses in Kerry and special mention at this juncture to The Gleneagle Group (our home still for Killarney Race days!).

The Killarney Oaks, The Great Southern Hotel and The Board of Directors and Staff at our current home, The beautiful Killarney Racecourse in what is now The Celtic Steps Theatre” said David Rea.