This collection contains memorabilia relating to the Irish dancing school established in Castlemartyr by James O’Mahony in the 1930s and its subsequent expansion to Midleton and Youghal by his daughter, Kathleen Keniry. The collection highlight is James O’Mahony’s notebook (N86/3/1), in which are recorded traditional step dances from many of the dancing masters prominent in Cork in the early twentieth century. The documented steps in the book provide a rare insight into step dances popular at the time and make possible their reconstruction and closer study.

Posters, flyers, programmes, press cuttings, photographs and ephemera collected by Frances Buchanan née O’Hara mainly reflecting her times in Patricia Mulholland’s Irish Ballet.