Ellen Coyne

But it does, in reality.

I mean, everything in Irish dancing is about winning and anything that isn't rewarded with high marks by judges will be jettisoned very, very quickly.

So basically what had emerged was that there was a big allegation made to CLRG that summer in 2022 that there was initially 12 teachers accused of what became known as fesh fixing.

So where you text another teacher or judge and prearrange for them to mark up your dancer in a competition before it's even happened.

That obviously exploded.

More allegations came in.

And in the end, 44 people were accused of the practice that we refer to as fesh fixing.

Now, how this works is

Hard to prove.

impossible to prove.

And while this was known as like an open secret for decades in Irish dancing, everyone thought that it would never come to life because nobody would actually ever have documentary proof.

There was one incident a few years ago that I detail in the book where someone slipped a note under what they thought was a judge's hotel room door with a list of preferential marks on it before the competition had even happened.

But that became like folklore in Irish dancing.

That was like, oh, that was the only time we ever got close to proving it.

So to actually have what appeared to be screenshots of texts, the only reason that shocked anyone in Irish dancing is because they just thought that they would never get proof that this was actually happening.

It was just an open secret that was tolerated.

Well, two reasons.

The first, I think as outsiders, we underestimate how incredibly addicting Irish dancing is.

It's an art form.

It's a sport.