It was more like the dance of St Vitus, dance than Riverdance.

Perhaps, I stamped when I should have stomped. Perhaps, my body’s fluidity could have been better and my toes more obedient. Perhaps, my footwear let me down. Perhaps, I should have had proper shoes. But the music was marvellous, the company impossible to better and the craic on Ireland’s Paradise Rock club was unsurpassable. On the Aran Islands your feet rarely touch the ground.

Thirteen-mile long Inishmore is the largest of the three isles of Aran, off the west coast of Galway in the Republic of Ireland. It is the home of Irish set dancing and no better place is there to learn. Dance historians go to Aran to pick up some ancient moves and traditional body shapes. Beginners like me go there to get a stitch and humiliate themselves to music. Everyone on Inishmore is a dancer and dances the days away. In the village halls, in Rhonda Twobles bar, at crossroads, in front of the war memorial and even on the beach at Gort na gCapall. Everyone is dancing.

PJ had seen nothing like it before he saw me trying to strut my stuff at our al fresco ceilidih not far from the island’s main village at Kilronan. He looked at me in despair. As did my troupe. My contribution to the world of dance and dance as an art form in general was hard to guage. It was microscopic, anyway. PJ shook his head in disbelief as he pumped out Mrs Macleod’s Reel on his squeeze-box, hoping that I might, in the words of the poet WB Yeats, finally and quite accidentally “give expression to a life not yet expressed”.

O’Brien’s Castle on Inisheer.

“What am I doing wrong?” I asked my fellow pupil Dave Scully from Dublin, as I executed a frenzied and rather malarial, hopscotch, my body surreally out of time with the music.

“You are better not knowing,” said my partner, as the Atlantic waves crashed down around us. Aerobically, it was very satisfying. Aesthetically, it was probably less so.

There are daily ferries to the Aran isles from Rossaveal harbour, as well as Aer Arann plans from Connemara airport. The islands hold regular Irish set dancing masterclasses throughout the summer.

Wicklow stages a dance festival in September and Co. Mayo has one in April. When you are on the very edge of western Europe, dancing is a good way to keep warm when you have had enough whiskey.

The three islands lie off the rocky coast of Connemara and the barren limestone coast of Co Clare. Facing the open Atlantic on the west and Galway bay to the east, the eastern island of Inisheer is only a bilious five-mile boat ride from Doolin in County Clare. Its most outstanding features are the 15th century O’Brien’s castle built inside a much earlier cahier, or stone ring fort, and the church connected with the female saint Gobnait. The playwright John W. Synge lived here for a while and, no doubt, visited Conor fort, the largest of all the Aran forts. Apart from sore feet, the main souvenir from the Arans are called pampooties, which are very uncomfortable, and largely unwearable, hide shoes. Everyone was very concerned about my footwear when I visited Inishmore or Aranmore. They recommended I purchased a sturdy and well-padded pair of Rutherford Flexi-Ghille walk-and-reel friendly shoes. Good for both dancing and sight-seeing.

When you are on the very edge of western Europe, dancing is a good way to keep warm when you have had enough whiskey

And exactly what you need in order to walk across the seaweed and manure, the oat and potato fields around the Neolithic wedge tombs and the early Christian hill forts, as well as when going up to see the view from Teampall Bheanain, the little stone oratory of St Benan

Dun Aengus is another walk-to must-see. Perched on the edge of sheer cliffs, legend suggests that it was the fort of a banished Fir Bolg chieftain. It is thought to have been built about the time of Christ, although there is a debate as to whether it was built for defensive, ceremonial or merely sadistic purposes. It is a long and hard climb, no matter what your degree of fitness, or choice of shoewear.

Wicklow is not only home to stupendous scenery, but also to a world-famous annual dance festival.

PJ Flaherty runs the island’s two best restaurants. He is an authority on Irish set dancing and the man to know. By the age of four he was wearing bawdier, or musicians’ breeches, and able to play all the accordion classics… thigh-slapping evergreens like Sally Gardens, Bird in the Bush, Dunphy’s Hornpipe, Stack of Barley and The Bluebell Polka.

Offering himself as an answer to all my Irish dancing needs and a cure-all for all my coordination problems he told me: “You can dance to any instrument. From a fiddle to the Uillean pipes. We’ll soon have you dancing to a tin whistle. We’ll have you doing the Dinky Dorian and the Lucy Campbell before you know it.”

Not wishing to jig before I could reel, I asked my Irish dance coach how long it would take me to master basic breath control, rudimentary postural alignment and core stability. He watched me ‘treble’ and ‘blatter’ for a while, before replying “Years”. Then, he paused to correct himself, adding: “Perhaps decades.” To reduce the chances of injury, my troupe kept their distance.

The Connemara O’Flahertys took possession of Ara na Naoimh or Aran of the Saints in the 16th century. “St Endsa founded a monastic settlement at Killeany in about 490,” said PJ. “Many of Ireland’s great saints came to study here. People like Colmcile, Ciaran, Brendan, Fursey and Colman.

He looked at me as if I were no saint, as I improvised some interesting, new foot patterns.

There is no better place to learn set dancing than Inishmore.

“The music goes back to the 18th century and perhaps earlier,” he said, as I staged a tactical cramp attack and left the experts to it. “Set dancing is a bonding process, performed by up to eight people. It unites people. Each Irish country has its own distinctive form of dance and special steps. It’s a big thing, here.”

Exhausted and (in my case) half-crippled, we retired to The American Bar for “a drap of the black stuff”.

“Nothing reveals the physical exuberance and joie de vivre of Gaelic island life better than its dancing,” said PJ, toasting our health. “Every day on the rock is a commemorative occasion.”

In response to my tutor’s challenge, I got up and showed him what I had learnt. I have never gotten so hot so quickly in my life. My fellow pupil Dave Scully, loquacious after a few pints of Guinness, looked at me and held out a hand.

“Congratulations! You are now an Aran sweater.”