Our Teachers

Meighan Carpenter, TCRG (owner)

Meighan graduated with honors from Northwestern University’s prestigious theatre program in 1997. She became a certified Irish dancing teacher, or TCRG, in 1999, and founded the Inis Cairde School of Irish Dance that same year. Inis Cairde solo dancers have qualified for the World Championships, placed at the Southern Oireachtas and North American Championships, and have captured numerous team and dance drama awards, the most prestigious of which were a North American title in 2002, and a third place finish at the World Championships in Killarney in 2003.

Respected by her Irish dancing colleagues, Meighan was elected as the first Southern Region representative to the Ethics Board of the Irish Dancing Teacher’s Association of North America (IDTANA) in 2009, and has served four terms on the IDTANA-Southern Region Executive Board as corresponding secretary and recording secretary.

Outside of her own teaching, Meighan has performed onstage with numerous Celtic musicians in concert, including Cherish the Ladies, Eileen Ivers, the Chieftains, Natalie MacMaster, and Liz Carroll. From 2000-2002, she joined the faculty of the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, NC, and in 2005 spent two weeks teaching Irish dancing in Tokyo with Rince Japan. Locally, she has created choreography for the Burning Coal Theater Company, and has worked in collaboration with the Triangle Wind Ensemble. She lives in Raleigh with her husband and two children.

Brita Kiser, TCRG

Brita began dancing with Inis Cairde while completing her undergraduate degree in biology at Duke University in 2000. A student of multiple forms of dancer since childhood, Brita quickly progressed to the championship level and competed at the World Championships in 2003 in Killarney in both solos and dance drama. After multiple major championships as  both a solo and team dancer, Brita retired from competition in 2006 in order to focus on teaching at Inis Cairde, and passed her TCRG in the spring of 2011, just before the birth of her second child.

In addition to teaching Irish dancing, Brita has also worked full-time as a science teacher at Green Hope High School in Cary, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Science Education from NC State. She lives in Apex with her husband and two children.