had very successful appearances in Dublin, in 1971-73 performing with the Cork Symphony Orchestra for a week at the Gaiety Theatre to packed houses. In 1992 the Ballet Week was given in tribute to its founder, who had died in January of that year; the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, attended the opening. The following year saw the last of the company's 46 seasons. The Folk Dance Group of the Cork Ballet Company Moriarty founded this group in 1957. It participated in the Cork An Tóstal Festival for many years, travelled in 1958 to the Youth Festival of Wewelsburg (near Paderborn, Germany) and in 1961 to the Dijon International Folk Dance Festival in France. As a prize-winner, it was invited back to Dijon in 1965. In 1966 the group travelled to Berlin and participated successfully in the Deidesheim and Dillenburg Folk Dance Festivals. In 1966 and 1967 the group, together with the Cork Ballet Company, was commissioned by RTÉ, the state broadcasting service, to give 13 television programmes of Irish dance called "An Damhsa" (the dance), choreographed by Moriarty, costumes by Clare Hutson. Irish Theatre Ballet (1959–64) Irish Theatre Ballet was founded by Moriarty in the summer of 1959, and gave its first performance in December 1959 in the presence of its patron, Marie Rambert. It was a small touring company of 10 to 12 dancers, which travelled all over Ireland, north and south, going to some 70 venues annually with extracts from classical ballets, contemporary works and folk ballets. Its first ballet master was Stanley Judson of the Anna Pavlova Company; then came Yannis Metsis of Ballet Rambert, then Denis Carey of Guatemalan State Ballet and finally Geoffrey Davidson of Festival Ballet. Charles Lynch was the company's pianist. Marshall Hutson and his wife, Clare, produced stage designs and costumes for many of the shows. 24 new ballets were created for the company; new music was commissioned for five of these, among them two folk ballets for which Seán Ó Riada provided scenarios and music, the latter performed by his Ceoltóirí Chualann. Irish Theatre Ballet received a small grant from the Arts Council of Ireland, and aid from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, but depended mainly on funding from business and private patrons. In an attempt to resolve the constant financial difficulties, the Arts Council in 1963 insisted on a merger with Patricia Ryan's Dublin National Ballet. But the amalgamation did