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Gonzaga Prep senior continues to share love of her Irish heritage

Bailey Plumlee is the notable student grad from Gonzaga Prep. She is the youngest of 6 kids and the only one not adopted. She is an Irish step dancer, won the 2014 Youth Chase award for Cultural Awareness and took third place in the 2013 Washington State High School Fencing Championships. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
By Matthew Kincanon For The Spokesman-Review
Bailey Plumlee is the notable student grad from Gonzaga Prep. She is the youngest of 6 kids and the only one not adopted. She is an Irish step dancer, won the 2014 Youth Chase award for Cultural Awareness and took third place in the 2013 Washington State High School Fencing Championships. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)

Bailey Plumlee, a senior at Gonzaga Preparatory School, has hobbies including painting and drawing, but one she has shown much dedication to: Irish step dancing.

“I love making people smile and the sense of accomplishment when I work really hard to get a step down and finally nail it,” Plumlee said.

Plumlee said she started learning Irish step dancing after her grandfather took her to her first River Dance show when she was 3 or 4 years old.

When her grandfather saw her enjoy the show, he asked her to try it out.

“He wanted me to dance because I had already been in ballet and Scottish dancing,” Plumlee said. “He wanted me to continue my Irish heritage, even though he wasn’t Irish.”

She said her grandpa was mostly Polish, but loved the Irish in her grandma.

Her grandfather saw her as his “little Irish granddaughter.”

Kellie Marie Plumlee, Bailey’s mother, said her father saw Bailey as “the apple of his eye.”

When her grandfather became ill, Plumlee said she would visit him and perform for him “to help him smile.”

“Originally, I started doing it for him and then I would go and dance for him at his house to make him feel better,” Plumlee said. “And then towards the end, when he couldn’t come to my shows anymore, I started to really fall in love with it and so I just kind of continued on with it for myself.”

Marie Plumlee said her daughter “fell in love with not just the dance, but the history of the dance and how Irish step dancing came about and I guess the lore they bring into the dance.”

Since Plumlee started, she has been performing with the Haran Irish Step Dancers, her troupe, for close to 15 years.

She won the 2014 Youth Chase Award for Cultural Awareness for shows she and others from the troupe choreographed for St. Patrick’s Day fundraisers at Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral.

Plumlee has performed at her former grade school All Saints Catholic School, retirement homes, the INB Performing Arts Center, a pavilion in Missoula, Chewelah, the Bing Crosby Theater, and Spokane Community College.

“Anytime they (All Saints Catholic School) had a celebration for St. Patrick’s,” Marie Plumlee said, “she would volunteer to bring her costumes in and go dance for all the children in the preschool, and then she would dance for her class.”

Plumlee also has expressed her Irish heritage through other mediums, including drawings, paintings of Celtic knots and a photo journal of her making a feis dress.

“I just find the history and traditions and culture of the Irish people to be rich and beautiful,” Plumlee said. “And being part Irish, I love to learn more about it and incorporate it into my life for others to enjoy.”

Plumlee plans to major in religious studies at Gonzaga University and eventually become a teacher, while continuing to perform with her troupe and “making people happy doing that.”