Rose Mary "Maureen" Hall

She started with a bicycle. And ended up in an airplane.

Back in the 1940s in Cork, Ireland, Maureen McTeggart started biking to neighboring villages to teach Irish dance when she was 16. Later she switched to her brother’s motorcycle or the family car. By age 21, she’d founded her own school, the McTeggart Irish Dancers.

After marrying William Hall, immigrating to Los Angeles in 1958, moving to Firebaugh and then Fresno, and eventually starting a network of Irish dance schools throughout the western and central parts of the United States, she was more than familiar with a different mode of transportation: the airplane.

She racked up more than 5 million lifetime miles.

“Near the end of her life, Mom was teaching classes in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Lexington, Ky., and Oklahoma City,” says son Kevin Hall. “She was doing this into her early 80s. On top of this, she would fly to Ireland at least three times a year.” Kevin Hall sent me an itinerary a few days ago from one of his mom’s trips in 2013. It exhausted me just to read it: a whirlwind 10-day teaching trip from Fresno to Houston, Lexington, New Orleans, Dallas and Oklahoma City.

Mrs. Hall, who died Feb. 16 at age 87, leaves behind a remarkable legacy in terms of Irish dancing. The McTeggart Irish Dancers schools are still going strong under the supervision of two of her daughters, Pat and Anne. She taught thousands of students over the decades, and some went on to become regional, national and world champions. She served for 40 years on An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha, the worldwide governing board of Irish dancing. At last summer’s national championships in Orlando, Fla., she was honored with a lifetime achievement award as a pioneer of Irish dance in North America.

“She was one of those essential figures without whom Irish dance would not be the tremendously successful activity it is today,” says Anne Hall.

Perhaps most important, dozens of Mrs. Hall’s students became certified Irish dance teachers themselves, a rigorous process.

“One of her dancers just took the teaching exam,” says Russell Beaton, the president-elect of the Irish Dance Teachers Association of North America.“As Maureen helped create new teachers, she helped create the next generation.”

Drive and passion for Irish dance was always in the cards for Mrs. Hall, who said farewell to a highly successful school serving hundreds of students when she moved from Ireland to the U.S. with her husband and two children (with another on the way). It took a lot of fortitude to leave that behind and start in a new country.

In Firebaugh – not exactly known as a hotbed of Irish culture – she started classes at St. Joseph’s Elementary School. She learned and then taught a number of different international folk dances, including from Mexico, Spain, Ukraine and the Philippines. Once a week she offered an Irish dance class. All were welcome.

Long before “cultural diversity” became buzzwords, Mrs. Hall was adept at coaxing children of different ethnic backgrounds into the world of Irish dance.

Kevin Hall remembers that her teams in the 1960s and ’70s were unusual because of their diversity. It was a tradition years ago for each competitor in an Irish dance competition to enter with his or her “Irish name.” “She’d add an ‘O’ or a ‘Mc’ to names like Gonzales, Monreal and Martinez,” he says.

Fresno later became her home base. After her husband died in 1990, she moved to Denver but returned to Fresno a decade later. The constant flying became part of her life. She didn’t mind the travel – she always had a bit of wanderlust, her daughter Anne says – but it was the teaching she loved.

I’m intrigued with this idea of a woman with a fierce purpose always at the forefront, almost like an evangelist. What kind of teacher was she?

“I would say she was loved and feared in equal measures as a teacher,” Anne Hall says. “My mom’s personality was very strict and very giving. She demanded much respect from her students. And she got that respect because they knew how much she cared about them. She always wanted Irish dancing to proliferate. It was never about her personally. She was never doing this for her own self-promotion.”

Determination is the word that comes to the mind of Beaton of the North American Irish dance group. “She always struck me as the kind of person who had a really strong mission in mind. She accomplished her goals simply by saying, “I’m going to do this.”

Anne Hall tells me that while her mother didn’t get mushy about it, she was touched that McTeggart Irish Dancers would continue after she’s gone. “She did let me know that she was tremendously proud that my sister and I had continued in her footsteps,” she says.

She didn’t let her later years slow her down, continuing her teaching trips into her mid-80s.

“Keep in mind she'd already had a stroke which affected her vision, both knees replaced, advanced macular degeneration in both eyes, and cataracts removed in both eyes as well,” Kevin Hall says. “She was like a heroic knight you see in the movies who has taken a dozen arrows and continues to fight and win.”

Still, for all her conviction and persistence, Mrs. Hall had a tenderness to her that could soar. Her son remembers a recent interaction between her and a 6-year-old student nervous about making a leap. “My mom took her by the hand to support her while she leaped into the air,” he says. “She was literally and figuratively passing along the tradition.”

Maureen Hall

•Born:March 28, 1929

•Died:Feb. 16, 2017

•Occupation: Founder, McTeggart Irish Dancers

•Survivors:sister Betty Walsh of Cork, Ireland; children and in-laws Pat Hall of Tucson, Ariz.; Christina Hall of Fresno; Kevin Hall and Anne Mosgrove of Fresno; Tom and Jan Hall of Henderson, Nev.; Bill and Leila Hall of Fullerton; Vince Hall of San Diego; Anne Hall of Denver; and 10 grandchildren. Preceded in death by her husband, William, and son John Hall of Fresno.

•Services:A Rosary will be prayed at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, at Whitehurst Sullivan Burns & Blair Funeral Home. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28, at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. Interment will follow at St. Peter’s Cemetery.

Rose Mary "Maureen" Hall was born in Cork, Ireland, to Thomas and Rose McTeggart. The fourth of seven children, Maureen spent her childhood immersed in traditional Irish dance, which was to become her lifelong passion. At age 25 she married William Hall. In 1958, with two children and pregnant with her third, they emigrated to Los Angeles, CA. They soon moved to Firebaugh, CA, where they spent ten years before settling in Fresno. Their family grew to include two daughters and five sons. Maureen's commitment to her husband and children was limitless. This deep love found expression in daily kindnesses and a lifetime of great generosity. She valued and taught fairness within the family and for all of society. Her greatest gift to those who knew her was the way in which she modeled a life well lived, one shaped by respect for all, integrity, empathy, a strong will and the courage to follow one's passion. Throughout her long life, Maureen shared these attributes with the many thousands of children she taught in her dance classes, all of whom she addressed as "love". A gifted dancer in a family of highly talented dancers, she discovered teaching was her calling. At the age of 12 she began assisting students in her eldest sister Peggy's classes in Cork. By age 16 Maureen was bicycling to nearby villages to teach classes. This began a pattern of travelling-to-teach that grew to amazing proportions. While still teaching in and around Cork, Maureen soon graduated to borrowing a brother's motorcycle or the family car to start new classes at ever increasing distances, and at one point would teach classes in six different villages on a Saturday. At 21 she founded her own school, The McTeggart Irish Dancers. After settling in Firebaugh she started weekly classes at St. Joseph's Elementary School, Romain Playground in Fresno, and various locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. By 1965 she had six children ranging in age from newborn to nine years old but was teaching every Thursday night in Fresno and every Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, making the roundtrips with all her children. For the students at St. Joseph's, she learned and then taught international folk dances, teaching each grade a different country's traditional dance, including ones from Mexico, Spain, Ukraine, Philippines, Ireland, American square dancing and more. Once a week after school she would conduct an Irish dance class open to everyone. Her seventh child was born just days after the family moved to Fresno in 1971. In Fresno she began teaching international dances at St. Anthony's and Heaton elementary schools, as well as her own private classes. Maureen's Irish dance teams stood out in the 1960s and early 1970s for being racially integrated, a fact she never mentioned to the children because for her race was never a concern. In the next phase of her career, Maureen began traveling annually to Ireland and teaching monthly in Denver, CO. Over the decades she added dance classes in more cities, and the trips to Ireland increased, too. She eventually amassed more than five million miles in the air. After the death of her beloved Bill in 1990, Maureen moved to Denver but returned to Fresno ten years later. In her final years, though well into her 80s, her teaching itinerary still included monthly trips of back-to-back days in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Lexington and Oklahoma City. She judged dance competitions throughout the United States, Ireland and Great Britain, and frequently flew to Dublin for meetings of An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha, the governing board of Irish dancing on which she served for 40 years. She also served as an examiner for new teachers and adjudicators seeking certification. Maureen regarded her greatest career accomplishments as establishing Irish dance classes in cities that had none and mentoring new teachers to carry on the tradition. This includes both of her daughters, Pat and Anne, who teach and adjudicate Irish dancing full-time. Maureen also valued taking her dancers to different parts of the United States and the world. Former students regularly thanked her for the important role she had played in their lives. From driving station wagons jammed with dancers to Vancouver, Denver or Boston, or bringing groups of dancers from the United States to compete in Ireland, she broadened the horizons of countless young lives. Maureen was preceded in death by her husband, Bill, and son Jack. She is survived by her sister, Betty Walsh of Cork; her children, Pat Hall of Tucson, AZ, Christina Hall of Fresno, Kevin Hall and Anne Mosgrove of Fresno, Tom and Jan Hall of Henderson, NV, Bill and Leila Hall of Fullerton, CA, Vince Hall of San Diego, CA, and Anne Hall of Denver, CO; ten grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and thousands of dancers across the United States and Ireland. She taught us all, on the dance floor and off, to stand straight, stay on our toes, support one another, and most important, to leap as high as we can. A Rosary will be held at Whitehurst Sullivan Burns & Blair Funeral Home in Fresno, CA, on Monday, February 27, 2017, at 7:00 p.m. A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Fresno, CA, on Tuesday, February 28, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. Interment will follow at St. Peter's Cemetery.