School Information

 History of the Cummins School
In 2001, teachers Frances Cummins Donahue and her daughters, Noreen McAleer, TCRG, and Kerri Meenagh, founded the Cummins School of Irish Dance, in order to bring Irish Dance classes to the Northwest section of Philadelphia.  They began giving classes in a church in Roxborough, and, by 2002, the school grew large enough to move to the location we are proud to call our current home, The Commodore Barry Club, The Irish Center of Philadelphia in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia.  In 2010, the Cummins School also added a studio location at the North Penn VFW in Glenside. 
 

Since those beginnings in a church hall, the Cummins School has had the privilege of teaching hundreds of students, from tiny tots to eventual Open Champions and World Qualifiers.  The Cummins School has won the award for Outstanding Children’s Irish Dance Group in the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Parade five times, including three consecutive years between 2011-2013.   Cummins Dancers can be seen performing throughout the greater Philadelphia area, from the Penn’s Landing Festival, to Phillies Irish Heritage Night, to school events and nursing homes. 
 

The colors of the Cummins School costumes represent the school history as well.  The dark blue and light blue in the school costume represent Dublin, Frances’ birthplace.  Notably, the first classes of the Cummins School were to have taken place on 9/11/2001, and the red and white colors were added to the costume in memoriam.