Our Teachers

Joanie Feeney Ohrt, TCRG

Joanie started Irish Dancing right here in Maryland at age 6 and was immediately hooked! Growing up in a military family, Joanie moved often, making dancing difficult to keep up with at times, but she and her parents always found a way to make it work. She danced the O'Toole School (MD), O'Neill-James School (VA), and she finished her competitive career dancing with the Schade Academy(NY).

Throughout her career, Joanie performed at many exciting venues including: Carnegie Hall, On tour with Trinity Irish Dance Company, The Kennedy Center, The White House, The Vice President's House and numerous festivals, parades and other performances.

As much as Joanie loved performing, her passion has always been competition. She began competing at the Regional and National levels at age 13, and, with a lot of hard work and dedication qualified at age 14 and competed at the World Championships at age 15. Joanie was competitive throughout high school and college. She was an eight-time consecutive World Championship qualifier and competitor. She won 1st Place at the Southern Region Oireachtas, and finished in the top 4 at the Mid Atlantic Oireachtas seven times. In addition to her success as a solo competitor, Joanie also competed in team dancing as a member of the Schade Academy Senior Ladies Championship Teams (4-hand, 8-hand and Figure Choreography). These teams won numerous 1st Place titles at the Oireachtas, Nationals and finished in the top 4 at the World Championships.

Joanie graduated Cum Laude from Seton Hall University in 2002 with dual degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. She is employed in the Washington DC area working in cybersecurity.

After retiring from dancing in 2003, Joanie took some time to get settled with her career and start a family. In October 2011 she took the TCRG exam and passed with honors. She is proud to be an accredited and registered TCRG through An Chomhdhail, and the USA Irish Dance Alliance (USA IDA).

Joanie is thrilled to have opened a location of the highly successful O'Grady Quinlan Academy here in Maryland, and looks forward to sharing her love of Irish Dancing with a new generation here in Southern Maryland!

Mary Martin, TCRG

Mary began dancing at age 5, and was instantly hooked. After a few years of recreational dancing, she caught the competitive bug and her talent and hard work exploded. Mary competed at her first Southern Region Oireachtas at age 13, where she recalled and qualified for the North American Championships. In the years after, she continued to stretch and reach her competitive goals, continuously qualifying for the World Irish Dancing Championships. Mary represented OGQ South and LOGQ at the World Championships in London 2014, Montreal 2015, and Glasgow 2016. She continued competing throughout highschool and college until the COVID-19 pandemic began. Joanie was her teacher and constant mentor throughout her dancing career and into adult life.

Mary graduated Summa Cum Laude from Towson University with a B.S. in Speech-Language Pathology in December 2020. She continued on to graduate school at Towson University and graduated with an M.S.in Speech-Language Pathology in May 2023. While succeeding in competition and academics, Mary has been helping teach dance classes at this location since the first beginner class opened in 2012. Mary multi-tasked during her last semester of graduate school and earned her TCRG in March 2023. She is thrilled to be teaching with Joanie at OGQ South. Mary is proud to be an accredited and registered TCRG through An Chomhdhail, and the USA Irish Dance Alliance (USA IDA).