{"id":612816,"date":"2026-09-03T02:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/612816\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T02:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:30:18","slug":"its-all-weve-ever-known-the-sixth-generation-circus-family-keeping-the-show-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/612816\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s all we’ve ever known’: The sixth generation circus family keeping the show on the road"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Cormac Fitzgerald<\/p>\n

Rockin’ the Suburbs<\/p>\n

In this series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a different town or suburb each week to cover the gigs and cultural experiences you rarely see covered by Irish media outlets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s subject: A trip to the circus in the last week of summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

****\u00a0<\/p>\n

AS I WATCHED Tom and Jamie Duffy spin, swing and jump through the air on the Wheel of Death in the centre of the circus ring, I was struck once again by how something so wondrous to so many people can become the most normal thing in the world when you have been doing it your whole life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the end of the first night in Clontarf for Tom Duffy\u2019s Circus. I and the rest of the 2-300 strong audience \u2013 many of them children \u2013 had just been treated to two hours of pure, joyous spectacle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Across the packed schedule were dancers and acrobats, jugglers and motorcycle riders, pounding music and bright lights,\u00a0high wire trapeze artists, aerial rope performers, a really funny clown who made delightful fools of the audience,\u00a0a strongman bending metal poles and literally getting run over by a jeep, and lots more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It had been many years since I had gone to the circus, and I was very impressed with the level of talent, showmanship, and sheer physical artistry that was on display.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But now the final act had come.<\/p>\n

The huge steel contraption with two circular chambers on either side hung over the ring, the Duffys started to spin it around and hopped on.<\/p>\n

Over the next 10 or so minutes, they spun the wheel between themselves, landing and hoisting themselves up onto the contraption as it went round and round at high speed.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7786\"
\n Jamie and Tom performing the act at an earlier show. Tom Duffy’s Circus<\/p>\n

Tom Duffy’s Circus\n<\/p>\n

The wheel rotated, powered only by the two brothers\u2019 momentum and balance. They flew through the air unsupported, only to land on top of the wheel just as it was spinning to the other side. It was crazy to watch. One mis-timed move could have spelled disaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the act finished off, Jamie got himself ready and did a somersault on the outside of the wheel as it spun. Apparently he is one of the only people in the world who can do this.<\/p>\n

The crowd went wild.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a final song and dance number where all the performers emerged onstage, the crowd gave a final round of applause and started to file out.<\/p>\n

The Duffy brothers and the rest of the performers began to clean up and wind down the big top for the evening, sweeping the aisles for popcorn and shutting off the lights.<\/p>\n

The show was over.<\/p>\n

Just another day at the office for the sixth generation circus family.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2382\"
\n The strongman about to get crushed.\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all in the family<\/p>\n

A few hours earlier, I walked from the bright evening into the huge blue and red big top tent that had recently been set up at the corner of the Alfie Byrne Road in Clontarf.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second I entered the space, with the bright show lights, pictures of past performers and shows, the ticket booth and the big ring with all the ropes and pulleys and contraptions, I was transported to that circus world with all its connotations of the past and of greasepaint, off-kilter spectacle, clowning and the bizarre carnival atmosphere; the feeling of normal reality being suspended in this space, where anything could happen.<\/p>\n

I sat down to talk with Tom and Jamie, their father David, and Tom\u2019s wife Candice before the show, and tried to express this sense of immediate wonder that I felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean it is normal for us because we\u2019ve all been born into it,\u201d David Duffy (64), the patriarch of the family told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the fifth generation. The lads are sixth. And my granddaughter [Tom and Candice’s daughter Charlotte] now who\u2019s 18 months old is the seventh.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are centuries of circus in the Duffy family line. It all started in the 1800s, and the skills and knowledge have been passed down through the generations, with various Duffys forming various circuses over the decades.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2397\"<\/p>\n

Tom Duffy\u2019s Circus came into being in the early 1980s when David\u2019s father, Tom (who died in 2022), split from his brothers and formed his own outfit. With the exception of the Covid years, it has been on the road ever since, and is the only Duffy circus left standing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still feel that wonder. They all laugh at me, but I still feel it,\u201d said Candice Duffy, who wasn\u2019t born into the circus and so can still see it from an outsider\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

Originally from north Wales, she has been working in circuses for 16 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI first went to a small village green circus that had spotted ponies and girls dressed in sequins doing ballet and acrobatics and it was just like this microcosm of everything I\u2019ve found joy in I suppose,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve a lot more cynical worldview on it but for me it\u2019s never lost it\u2019s magic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were both born into it,\u201d Tom Duffy (33) told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were on the road all the time, nine months of the year. Apart from three months that are closed for winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family had an arrangement with the Department of Education where teachers would privately tutor the boys while they were on the road. They attended normal school when the family \u2013 including the boys\u2019 mother Stephanie \u2013 retreated to their base in Bohermeen, outside Navan, Co Meath, for the first three months of the year to rest and plan for the year ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad stayed in school the whole time growing up and would only go back to the circus during the summer holidays,\u201d said Jamie (30).<\/p>\n

So dad made the decision at the time, and of course the system was better, that we would never be off the show, which has helped us really learn.<\/p>\n

And learn they did. The boys started doing acts from a young age. The same way a typical child might learn to kick a football or ride a bike, they were immersed in a world of juggling, performance and acrobatics. Soon, they were performing multiple acts in the ring.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2415\"
\n The brothers perform the Wheel of Death.\n<\/p>\n

This year, they are only performing the Wheel of Death, which they have been doing for the past 13 years. But for the lads, it\u2019s no big thing. The hardest part these days is keeping the show on the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re performers and we run all the lighting and the sound and all the technical parts of the show. It\u2019s all me and Jamie,\u201d said Tom.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus being inside the ring performing [what used to be] three or four acts as well. It\u2019s tiring. It\u2019s hard work, but it\u2019s all we\u2019ve ever really known.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do they miss performing lots of acts?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting old now. I can feel it in my knees,\u201d said Tom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I laugh and say they\u2019re not that old yet, but Jamie sets me right:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve been in the ring since five or six it gets hard. We\u2019ve got 25 years of this behind us!\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping the show on the road\u00a0<\/p>\n

The size of the operation is staggering: 25 trucks complete with caravans and stuffed full of all the props and fixtures, 40 workers, and roughly 40 locations a year (it used to be 90 before Covid). There are also costumes, lighting, sound, smoke machines and everything else to think about.<\/p>\n

Tom Duffy\u2019s Circus does about 200 shows a year during their season, not including a three-week Christmas circus in Tallaght. Except for a week or two here and there throughout the year, the family said they are always working.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2398\"
\n Some wonderful foot juggling on a motorcycle from the Gauchos.\n<\/p>\n

For decades David was the face of the circus and the ringmaster, directing proceedings through the show. He\u00a0suffered a stroke early this year and has taken a back seat since, buth is still very much involved in the running the business.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Candice has taken over ringmistress duties, as well as lots of the behind-the-scenes work, while the two brothers manage lighting, set up and the logistics of the whole operation.<\/p>\n

No one does just one job in the circus and this goes for the rest of the staff, too,\u00a0who work mostly on yearly contracts \u2013 they are the acrobats and trapeze artists, the cleaners and popcorn sellers. The woman selling you a drink at the interval might be the person you just saw doing death-defying acrobatics a few minutes earlier.<\/p>\n

It is a full-on, gruelling job for everyone involved, who must have dedicated their whole lives to perfecting their acts. It is not an easy life to do thing you love. The costs and the effort are huge, and recently the Duffys have been feeling close to the edge.<\/p>\n

On the night I was there, the huge big top seemed a bit over half full, but Candice told me this was probably a first night bump. In general, the family are worried about declining tickets sales in recent years, after a significant post-Covid surge in attendance.<\/p>\n

I ask if phones and the constant availability of cheap distracting entertainment has anything to do with it, but the Duffys put the blame squarely on the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has had the biggest effects on us is the economy at the moment,\u201d said David Duffy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople haven\u2019t got that much spare cash. The price of fuel, insurance, local authorities not giving us accessible grounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not in a bubble, we\u2019re not isolated from what\u2019s going on around us, as we aren\u2019t isolated from the same problems as everybody else with the economy.<\/p>\n

Because there\u2019s only so much that we can absorb and put on to our ticket prices because people are struggling at the moment and entertainment is a luxury, it\u2019s not a necessity.<\/p>\n

The show must go on<\/p>\n

But still the show goes on, night after night after night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A full summer of touring across rural Ireland behind them, the circus is in Clontarf until Sunday 6 September. Then it\u2019s off to Tyrrelstown, then to the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, and so on.<\/p>\n

Once the show started, I forgot all about the logistics and got lost in the spectacle of it all. From the smiles, to the athletics and showmanship, from Maycon the Brazilian clown\u2019s antics, to the highwire acrobats to the Duffys\u2019 ridiculous Wheel of Death routine, I didn\u2019t get a sense of jadedness from the performers in the ring.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2387(1)\"<\/p>\n

As David Duffy put it:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the public comes to see us, our whole thing is for them to forget about their problems, so there\u2019s no point us telling them our woes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it must be hard to do the same show day in day out, then to pack up an entire convoy and move onto the next town, set up and do it all over again, while worried about attendance and what will happen in the future.<\/p>\n

As Tom Duffy said, though, it\u2019s all they know \u2013 the show must go on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As they spun through the air for their finale, Tom and Jamie were probably already thinking about shutting the place down for the night, their highly trained bodies on automatic mode after all the years of perfecting the act.<\/p>\n

But for Candice Duffy, the magic is definitely still there:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so passionate about making circus so accessible and community engagement because it is often a child\u2019s first experience of live entertainment and culture and art,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s an affordable and accessible way. Coming from a working class background that is important to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no etiquette here like there is in the theatre or the opera\u2026 and it\u2019s really accessible for multi-generations to come and have a great time.<\/p>\n

It was always magic to me. I love the circus and that\u2019s why I think I am good at my job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cormac Fitzgerald Rockin’ the Suburbs In this series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[259684,61,60,43,126,228613,259685],"class_list":["post-612816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-circus","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-performance","tag-rockin-the-suburbs","tag-tom-duffy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}