Dancers from Mayo helped to break a new Guinness World Record last weekend when the longest ever Riverdance line-up of 392 dancers performed together. The charity event raised £10,000 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and will go towards training volunteer lifeboat crews in Ireland. The world record stood at 312 but 392 dancers lined the banks of the River Foyle in Derry to dance together for five minutes and smash the world record on Sunday last, it is now hoped the new record will be officially confirmed in the next few weeks.
Dancers travelled to the event from Donegal, Belfast, Down, Cavan, and Dublin with the three Mayo dance schools, the Sylvan Kelly School, Sheila Moffet School, and the Cheryl Nolan School adding to the line-up. Organiser of the event was RNLI fundraising manager, Tony Hiney from Mayo, who came up with the idea after Riverdance selected the RNLI as its chosen charity last year.
Paying tribute to all participants, Mr Hiney said: “I really can’t believe we did it. I want to thank all the dancers and their families for their support and their wonderful dancing teachers who backed the attempt from the very beginning. We are now sending all the official documentation to the Guinness World Record office. Fingers crossed we hope to have well beaten the current record and put the RNLI in the record books.”
Each dancer taking part in the record breaking attempt agreed to raise a minimum of £20/€20 to secure his/her place in the line-up.
