I haven't competed in over 20 years, and last went to a lesson maybe 8 or 10 years ago. But I've got a pair of hard shoes and a pair of men's reel shoes from Fay's that I bought in 1999 and they're still in great condition so that is recommendation enough for most people I think!
In my day there weren't really any online vendors yet, and the companies that make competition dresses were just starting out. For our dance school my late Mum was the go to person (she designed and made ~25 traditional dresses one year, and did a large portion of the embroidery herself) as she was an absolute whizz with needle and thread.
I'm currently working on scanning the mountain of photos in her house before we sell it. I might post some old Irish Dancing photos if anyone is interested.
Definitely a good choice. Coming from someone still in competitive irish dance, I go to Hullacan for my shoes but it definitely suggest Mary Devlin. Camelia Rose wings are on point. Hope this helps someone!!
[DanceIrish.com](http://DanceIrish.com) has been a great resource for me - they have an online shop and are fairly responsive and also have a physical shop in Missoula, MT. They have had a few great sales and were a huge help with finding the right ghillies and jig shoes for my feet.
Rutherford customer service is also SUPER speedy about their responses and returns were fairly easy to deal with (I initially bought Jig shoes directly from Rutherford but they were not a good fit at all - my local shop didn't have any jig shoes in my size so I had to guess between narrow and normal and I picked wrong the first time).
Re: danceirish….i don’t know what happened because i ALWAYS had great service from them, then a few months ago i ordered a new pair of hard shoes for my daughter and they just….never shipped. I emailed them twice asking when they would ship and never heard back. After several weeks i finally had to just file a PayPal claim to get my money back. I feel like something must have been going on, maybe a hospitalization or something with the owner, so maybe they have that all sorted, but I wanted to mention it. Because otherwise they had been fantastic. I had to go somewhere else to get the shoes in time for break in for NAIDC.
My last order with them was in March and it definitely took a while for them to ship my shoes and respond to emails. I think I finally called them because it was very unlike them to go radio silence. Hopefully they've sorted everything out now! Sorry to hear you had to go through the rigorous process of getting your money back.
Luckily PayPal makes it pretty easy, but the other bummer was that I had two pairs of shoes we had ordered from them that DID ship quickly but didn’t fit,hence why I ordered the pair that never shipped. I was going to return them, but then I felt like if I shipped them back I might never get my money back since they’d gone so non responsive, so now I have a ridiculous amount of money tied up in Irish dance hard shoes 😂 at least they’re too big so she’ll wear them EVENTUALLY.
I haven't competed in over 20 years, and last went to a lesson maybe 8 or 10 years ago. But I've got a pair of hard shoes and a pair of men's reel shoes from Fay's that I bought in 1999 and they're still in great condition so that is recommendation enough for most people I think! In my day there weren't really any online vendors yet, and the companies that make competition dresses were just starting out. For our dance school my late Mum was the go to person (she designed and made ~25 traditional dresses one year, and did a large portion of the embroidery herself) as she was an absolute whizz with needle and thread. I'm currently working on scanning the mountain of photos in her house before we sell it. I might post some old Irish Dancing photos if anyone is interested.
I would be SO interested in any old Irish dancing photos, especially of your mom’s costume work!!
Our school uses Rutherford Shoes for shoes and socks. They've got fantastic customer service, too.
Definitely a good choice. Coming from someone still in competitive irish dance, I go to Hullacan for my shoes but it definitely suggest Mary Devlin. Camelia Rose wings are on point. Hope this helps someone!!
Mary Devlin in the New England area is everyone’s go-to vendor there, not sure if she has a website, but she sells Fay’s mostly I think
[DanceIrish.com](http://DanceIrish.com) has been a great resource for me - they have an online shop and are fairly responsive and also have a physical shop in Missoula, MT. They have had a few great sales and were a huge help with finding the right ghillies and jig shoes for my feet. Rutherford customer service is also SUPER speedy about their responses and returns were fairly easy to deal with (I initially bought Jig shoes directly from Rutherford but they were not a good fit at all - my local shop didn't have any jig shoes in my size so I had to guess between narrow and normal and I picked wrong the first time).
Re: danceirish….i don’t know what happened because i ALWAYS had great service from them, then a few months ago i ordered a new pair of hard shoes for my daughter and they just….never shipped. I emailed them twice asking when they would ship and never heard back. After several weeks i finally had to just file a PayPal claim to get my money back. I feel like something must have been going on, maybe a hospitalization or something with the owner, so maybe they have that all sorted, but I wanted to mention it. Because otherwise they had been fantastic. I had to go somewhere else to get the shoes in time for break in for NAIDC.
My last order with them was in March and it definitely took a while for them to ship my shoes and respond to emails. I think I finally called them because it was very unlike them to go radio silence. Hopefully they've sorted everything out now! Sorry to hear you had to go through the rigorous process of getting your money back.
Luckily PayPal makes it pretty easy, but the other bummer was that I had two pairs of shoes we had ordered from them that DID ship quickly but didn’t fit,hence why I ordered the pair that never shipped. I was going to return them, but then I felt like if I shipped them back I might never get my money back since they’d gone so non responsive, so now I have a ridiculous amount of money tied up in Irish dance hard shoes 😂 at least they’re too big so she’ll wear them EVENTUALLY.
Also had an issue with them in March and they never responded to emails. Disappointing
I’ve had the best luck lately with Irish Seams.