Kildare’s Keeley Byrne takes home gold from world record-breaking Dance World Cup
The dancer from Newbridge also won a silver medal in a solo jazz event at the world’s largest all-genre dance competition
Kildare’s Keeley Byrne continued her trail of success by taking home a gold and silver medal from the 2026 Dance World Cup. Keeley was part of the Irish team which took top prize in the Senior Large Group Jazz event where they scored a winning 92.5 points.
The Dance World Cup is the world’s largest all-genre dance competition for children and young adults, featuring talent from over 60 countries and was this year held in The Convention Centre, Dublin.
Keeley also managed second place and a silver prize in the Junior Solo Jazz 2 event with a superb 88.5 points in that category. The Newbridge dancer finished top of the pile in the Aaron Dwyer Golden Buzzer Grand Finals earlier this year and has now built on that success at the World Cup on home soil.
The event, which ran from Wednesday, July 8 to Saturday, July 18, welcomed in the region of 50,000 people to Ireland’s capital in that time. The event applied for the Guinness World Record for the largest number of competitors at a single competition during their 2026 Dublin finals and featured a record-breaking registration of 11,500 dancers from across the globe.
Keeley spoke to the Leinster Leader in February of this year when she was in the midst of preparations for auditions to get onto the Irish World Cup team and it’s fair to say things have gone to plan since for the young performer from Kildare.