Dromore’s dancing king wins fourth world champion title

IT was an eventful evening for the Baxter School of Irish Dancing on Friday as they welcomed a past pupil who has been crowned world champion for a fourth consecutive year.

The celebrations took place at St Enda’s in Omagh where Barry Teague arrived in style by limousine.

The 20-year-old Dromore man, who currently resides in New York, is the second dancer from the Baxter School of Irish Dancing to claim the world title, with the title previously held by Lee McCrystal, who now teaches at the school.

Mary Colton, who founded the dancing school in 1988, said it was a ‘great night’.

“Barry has won the world title four times in a row, but we never really had the chance to celebrate it properly,” she explained.

“He has so much passion and demands 100 per-cent all the time.

“He loves it so much and he truly deserves everything that he has achieved because he has work so extremely hard.

“He has been dancing with us at the school since he was four, and in those early years we always knew he had something special, however, in the last seven or eight years we started to recognise real passion in what he does, and we couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Barry wasn’t the only dancer from the school to celebrate such a wonderful achievement, however, as Mrs Colton continued, “We had six dancers in total taking part in the World Championship and they all did extremely well.

“To name a few, Aoife Colton came in fifth place, and Oscar McGoldrick came seventh in the competition.

“Everyone did so well and we couldn’t be more proud of them.”