Four dancers from the Snoqualmie Valley have been invited to compete in the Western Regional Irish Dance Competition held in Anaheim, Calif.

Sydney Dore, 15, Madison Murphy, 15, and sisters Carly Goodspeed, 15, and Sarah Goodspeed, 11, have competed in Irish Dance Competitions throughout the year.  Their high standings as either preliminary champions or open champions in these competitions qualified the girls to compete in the Oireachtas Regional Competition, held the weekend before Thanksgiving.

This event is a qualifying event for both the North American Championships which takes place in Chicago and the World Championships held in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In Anaheim, the girls will be competing against 150 other top Irish dancers from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.  Dancers are grouped into different age groups according to their birth year which results in Sarah competing in the U11 group, Carly and Sydney competing in U15, and Madison competing in U16.

Each dancer will compete in both soft shoe and hard shoe in front of a panel of three judges.  Their combined scores are then used to select the top half dancers to perform a third dance and complete their set.  High-scoring dancers qualify for Nationals and top ten qualify for the World Competition in Ireland.

The girls are students of Scoil Rince Slieveloughane Irish Dance which is led by teacher Robert Haley of Seattle.  Classes are held locally at Puget Sound Gymnastics and Dance in North Bend.

PSGD offers students the opportunity to participate competitively by joining of their competitive teams.