The book Dances of Donegal Collected by Grace Orpen, published in London in 1931, is the first published collection of Irish traditional dances from one locality, as distinct from earlier general collections that included dances from different regions.

It is essentially a tutor for couple and group dances in the then living tradition, and it provides music for each dance along with dance notation and verbal description and instruction. The music is arranged for piano but some of the melodies were originally played on fiddle and concertina. Like some other Irish dance collections of the period, it has connections with a contemporary interest in exercise and physical education.

Grace Orpen (1905–66), the compiler and editor of the collection, was a member of a family from Carrickmines, Co Dublin, which regularly spent summer holidays in the Dunfanaghy area of Co Donegal. Her book is still in copyright and is reproduced here with the generous permission of the Somerville-Large family, who are the copyright holders. Her son Bill Somerville-Large has kindly provided this further information on Grace Orpen and the background to her book.