Ellen Coyne

His tenure in government is coming to an end.

And I think there is some head scratching about the fact that there wasn't another sec gen role in a different department being lined up for him that he could kind of transfer to.

So I think a lot of people would be quite interested to see where there's a vacancy in the Metrolink project as well, if he's interested.

I think if you're in politics, even as a sec gen, you would maybe not want as many headlines around your role as Robert Watt had around his.

So maybe it's less hassle to take the pay cut for certain officials.

Absolutely not.

And before this story, I think you could have fit everything I knew about Irish dancing on the back of a postcard.

I'd never done it, really had never written about it, knew nothing about it at all.

Certainly not by choice.

Sometimes in journalism, a story finds you rather than you seeking out the story.

In October 2022, I was just falling asleep when I got a strange anonymous email talking about brown envelopes and backhanders and even like an alleged sex scandal in Irish dancing.

And while I knew nothing about Irish dancing, I did know a fair bit about what a scoop is.

Yes, certainly.

I actually ended up staying up for the entire night talking to people all over the world because we know that Irish dancing is global.

So I was calling people in America and across Europe and trying to just unravel what I thought would be like a decent story that week.

I certainly didn't think that by March or April 2025, I'd still be writing about what became, I think, the biggest thing to happen to Irish dancing since Riverdance, but obviously a much more negative thing.

Yeah, like there's a concern in Irish dancing that has it become so ultra competitive?

Has it become nearly like a little bit formulaic that in certain competitions, maybe the person who wins isn't necessarily the best natural dancer, but they're the most disciplined one or the one who knows how to attract the most scores?

And when the margins are so thin, this weird thing happened where I suppose dance teachers would say they got so passionate about a dancer that they didn't want to leave it up to chance on the day.

They felt that their dancer deserved to win or had earned this trophy.