Expectations will be high in the Park Hotel on 12 May when the first notes of Do Your Thing welcome Niamh Gilmartin and Ross Brady on stage to perform the Charleston in Strictly Shamrocks sponsored by The Fence. Niamh it might be said was born to the stage and made her debut at the age of 4! She has trained with various dance schools including the Dionysus School of Dance and the Mullingar Stage School and has participated in numerous shows with the Mullingar Student Players, Mullingar Musical Society and Mullingar Panto Group. She is currently the Music Tutor with Mullingar Senior Stage School! A former member of the Mullingar Shamrocks Ladies Gaelic Football senior team, a comeback has not been ruled out and is part of the plan when Niamh completes her M. A. studies on the journey to becoming a primary school teacher.

If Niamh is comfortable on stage, her dancing partner Ross Brady does his best work off-stage. Ross is one of the great behind the scenes workers for St. Oliver Plunkett’s Hurling Club, Mullingar Shamrocks; various productions in the Arts Centre have also benefitted from Ross’s selflessness. Ross is one of those voluntary workers whose efforts are largely unnoticed and unacknowledged. However, he has occasionally stepped into the limelight. Ross has taken part in the Oliver Plunkett’s White-Collar Boxing tournament and in the Mullingar Shamrocks version of The Cube. He has also lined out on occasion for Mullingar Shamrocks; we will never forget his extraordinary hat-trick of goals scored against Tyrrellspass in the 2017 junior championship. It was the perfect collection of goals-one with the left foot, one with the right foot and one headed home. Will we ever see the like of this again?