ABSTRACT
An estimated 300 million viewers watched Riverdance debut on television as the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest's halftime entertainment. Simultaneously, original Riverdance dancer/choreographer Michael Flatley left to launch rival show Lord of the Dance in Ireland before touring the US, where it performed to an enormous global television audience at the 1997 Academy Awards. Riverdance and later Lord of the Dance foreshadowed the seemingly inexhaustible appetite for Irish-themed popular culture in the US during the 1990s and 2000s. This chapter briefly analyzes these shows with particular attention paid to their racialized discourses, including the selective, redemptive retelling of American Irish/African American relations, as well as the immigrant success storyline. The narrative highlights the persecution suffered by both groups and an assumed understanding and appreciation for one another resulting from this supposed common experience. This was a common trope in the 1990s and 2000s.
