Welcome to the home page of The Doubtless Bay Ceili Group. We are a group who live in the Far North of New Zealand and who enjoy celtic music and dance. We invite you to join us for a dance on the third Saturday of every month at the Mangonui Hall. Live music is provided by Spootiskerry Spraoi, a band made up of mostly local musicians, some of them professionals and some talented amateurs.

These pages will provide information about our regular dances and about other dances in our region and elsewhere. We will include maps & directions to help you find our dances. As time permits, we will also provide links to other sources of information about celtic music, dance, and culture and about our region. You can also view pictures of the ceili band and dancers.

A word of warning for purists: although we are great fans of celtic music and dance, and most of our tunes and dances are celtic, we do include a few dance sets that are not celtic in origin.

The word "ceili" or "céilidh" is pronounced "KAY lee" and is spelled in a variety of ways. The musician(s) and dancer(s) guiding the organisation of the group comes from a part of the celtic world where the word is spelled "ceili", while the webmaster comes from a background where "céilidh" is usual. In either spelling, a ceili means a good time. A céilidh was the traditional social dance of Ireland and Scotland, and the céilidh a frequent and important social event in those countries.

---

What's Celtic?

The celts came from the European continent and at various times became the dominant cultural group of almost every corner of the British Isles. The Breton celts remained on the continent and many still live in the parts of France nearest Britain. In more recent times, the celtic culture has remained most prominent in Ireland, Scotland, & Wales. The most widely known celtic music comes from Ireland (also called Eire or Erin) and Scotland (also called Caledonia). The traditional music of Ireland and Scotland has become dispersed throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. Breton music, too, has found adherents and performers beyond the shores of Brittany, most notably on Cape Breton Island in Canada. For more information on the celts and their culture, you might want to check out these links

---

---

Who plays this celtic stuff?

Many groups and individuals in Ireland, Scotland, England, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other odd corners of the world (English-speaking and otherwise) play, sing, & dance to celtic tunes. [I remember playing in quite a good jam session of celtic musicians at a folk festival in Denmark. -Bob]    Some of the groups, such as The Chieftains, The Dubliners, & the Irish Rovers have met with huge commercial success. Others, such as The Bothy Band, The Boys of the Lough, De Danaan (later De Dannan), & Patrick Street have achieved sufficient commercial success to provide their members with a decent living but never had major commercial air play and record sales.

Many other groups and individuals eke out a meagre living with their (celtic--as also with other) music, and many play for pocket money or just for fun and to spread the joy and beauty of celtic music. On our musicians page, we'll list as many of these as we can.

What's a céilidh?

For more information about the céilidh, follow these links:
the wikipedia definition
ibiblio.org
a factoid from factmonster
one band's idea of a céilidh
Scottish music
Sheffield University Ceilidh Society
Edinburgh's annual Ceilidh Culture showcase of traditional arts
dancing on the WorldWide Web with Webfeet

---

Some celtic links

Return to top of The Doubtless Bay Ceilidh Group home page

---

Return to top of The Doubtless Bay Ceilidh Group home page

---

Want to email The Doubtless Bay Ceilidh Group?

Use the (non-clickable, to foil spammers) address shown below:

This site created for The Doubtless Bay Ceilidh Group by nzwebstudio@iname.com.