Pandemic allows Emma get fighting fit – and ready for the light

As global pandemics go, Emma O’Sullivan has had a good one.

Because in November 2019, the All-Ireland champion sean-nós dancer from Connemara had surgery on her back and fully expected that it would end her dancing career.

But the lockdown lifestyle suited her.

And the back has ‘miraculously’ recovered enough for her to launch online dancing tutorials – Zoom-nós – which proved a massive global hit.

Emma, who is currently based at a cottage in Moyard, between Letterfrack and Clifden, went from darkness into light in lockdown.

So it’s only fitting then, that as we emerge on our path to freedom, the Renvyle native is planning an event to mark Pieta House’s Darkness into Light.

On May 8, the global community of online dance students that she’s built up since Halloween will dance at dawn wherever they are based across the world to raise money for the charity that supports people who are suicidal and those bereaved by suicide.

Emma will be dancing in the hills of Connemara that morning, something that would have been unthinkable 18 months ago after her back surgery.

“I was told ‘that’s it’ – there’d be no more dancing,” she said.

Deep down, she always knew she needed surgery but had avoided it.

“I was doing gigs with proper herniated discs.  I was at that crack for years – just performing through pain; getting people to put on my socks because I couldn’t bend down. It was crazy,” she said.

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