Marinwood Irish dance tradition enters new era

The rhythmic steps of Annie McBride’s dancers have echoed through the hall of the Marinwood Community Center for the past 45 years.

On Thursday, the founder of the McBride School of Irish Dance is saying an emotional farewell as she teaches her last class on Miller Creek Road. Then she will turn her Marin pupils over to new instructors.

“I’m very broken up about saying goodbye,” said McBride, who lives in Oakland. “I started there in 1978 when I was a young woman, and I have been teaching in that same hall since.”

McBride was born in Scotland to Irish parents. She became a student of Irish dance as a young girl in Glasgow. In 1959, when she was 19, McBride immigrated to the United States.

“By then, I thought I was done with dance,” McBride said, but a friend had recruited her to join a class in San Francisco. “I’ve been dancing ever since, all my life.”

She opened the McBride School of Irish Dance in 1967 and went on to teach classes in the East Bay and the North Bay.

It was in 1978 she opened classes at the Marinwood Community Center at the urging of Marin relatives and friends who wanted to celebrate their Irish heritage closer to home.

Over the years McBride has earned several credentials. In 2019, McBride was awarded the prestigious Gradam Award by An Coimisiún, the Irish Dancing Commission, for her contributions to Irish dance and culture.

The McBride school dancers have performed in competitions around the world. In Marin, dancers have also entertained groups such as the Marin Irish-American Club, the Marin Elks Club, the Las Gallinas Lions Club and several churches.

While McBride is bidding farewell to her pupils in Marin, she will continue to teach at her studios in the East Bay. She and her daughter Eileen McBride-Parker teach in San Ramon, Oakland, Pleasant Hill and Lafayette.

“I know people are looking at it as an end of an era,” McBride-Parker said, “but it’s something to be celebrated, not to be sad about.”

“It’s a time to look back on everything she has done and all of the lives that she has touched,” McBride-Parker said.

Eileen Mize, who was raised in Marinwood and still lives there, began classes with McBride in the 1980s.

“I just fell in love with the music, the steps and all of her stories,” Mize said. “That’s something that always set Annie apart for me. In addition to the steps and the technique, she instilled such a love and passion for Irish culture. I just loved our class time.”

Mize went on compete in the Irish World of Dancing Championships twice.

McBride said it is students like Mize, who started young and whom she watched grow, that she enjoyed most. She said the travel, the competition and the camaraderie made them a family.

“It’s great to watch the progress of a child,” McBride said. “They haven’t had the discipline of dancing, moving your feet to music. It’s really rewarding to see the progress.”

San Rafael resident Deirdre Reid is the mother of two daughters, Lauren and Ella, who grew up in McBride’s classes.

“I come from a family of Irish dancers,” Reid said. “I wanted to pass that tradition onto my two daughters.”

Both started when they were 5 and Lauren is still a student, Reid said.

“Irish dance has taught my girls many things: hard work, discipline, team work, dedication,” Reid said. “I feel like that has translated to who they are today. And there is a special bond between Irish dancers and the friends they’ve made for the rest of their lives.”

The Healy School of Irish Dance, a Marin institution that’s known as the longest-running Irish dance school in the world, will take over the weekly Marinwood classes.

PattiAnn Ranum of Larkspur and her daughter Alisa Belew of Novato will be leading the classes. Ranum is the daughter of the late Ann Healy, who taught Irish dance for decades as her father and grandfather did before her. Belew is a fifth-generation instructor.

“My grandmother, Ann Healy, and Annie McBride were very dear friends and colleagues,” Belew said. “Annie has made a tremendous impact on the local community, and the Healy School is very excited to continue to keep the Irish tradition alive and strong at the Marinwood Community Center.”

McBride said she would like to stay in touch. She feels assured that her students are in the hands of the Healy instructors at Marinwood Community Center.

“They’re still going to be dancing on the same day at the same hall,” McBride said. “I’m going to miss it, terribly.”

More information is online at marinwood.org/classes/youth-classes.