Rory O'More ~ Scottish is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by A Cosmo Mitchell in about 1890 in A Guide to Ball Room Dancing. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1924 and published in RSCDS Book 1. It is J8×32 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. J32.
The RSCDS attributes this to Mitchell's A Guide to Ball Room Dancing, a work I haven't found yet. The earliest I have found are the following:
D. Anderson's Ball-Room and Solo Dance Guide, he writes:
First and second ladies join hands, at same time first and second gents. join hands.Then advance and retire, and cross over to each other's places, ladies passing under the gent.'s arms.Advance and retire, then cross to places, ladies passing under gent.'s arms.Top couple down centre and back.First and second couples pousette.Repeat.Courtesy of National Library of Scotland, licensed under:
Also in Skinner writes:
Arrange the dancers as usual.
First and second ladies join hands, advance and retire with Quadrille step.
First and second gentlemen do the same at the same time. They re-advance, the ladies passing under the gentlemen's arms.
This is repeated, the gentlemen going under the ladies' arms
First lady and opposite gentleman then go dow the centre, back, and pousette.
Repeat.
Rory o' More has a tune of its own bearing the same name.
A quite different dance with this name appeared in the US in 1858 (Elias Howe, Boston). It seems likely to me that a dance appeared before 1897 in Scotland, but I haven't found any earlier sources.
Kate Hughes's manuscript, Dancing Book, Ireland, 1867, contains yet another version of the figure.
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
1-4 | Advance and retire |
5-6 | Cross over, men make an arch, women dive under |
7-8 | 2s turn their respective 1s under |
9-12 | Advance and retire |
13-14 | Cross over, women make an arch, men dive under |
15-16 | 2s turn their respective 1s under |
17-24 | 1s lead down the middle and back |
25-32 | 1s+2s poussette |
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=RoryOMore-SCD
The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.