QUICK TAKES - Jan. 1, 2009

Irish American dance master Michael Flatley is back on stage after years of suffering from a “mystery virus,” thanks to a treatment by an Irish “energy healer,” Irish media quoted Flatley as saying Wednesday.

Flatley, born in the United States in 1958 of Irish heritage, rose to fame as a member of the “Riverdance” troupe that helped propel Irish dancing into the global spotlight and later opened his own “Lord of the Dance” show.

He was taken to a hospital in London in 2006 with a virus that forced him to cancel the European tour of his “Celtic Tiger” show, a dramatization of Ireland’s history.

Flatley told the Irish Independent newspaper that he credited his recovery not to conventional medicine but to “a young man from Ireland called Michael O’Doherty who works on the body’s energy.”

“When he came to visit me in Ireland, I could barely get out of the chair,” he said. “He visited me about 10 times afterwards and, now, I feel really good. Great, in fact. I can dance at speed and I’m close to 100% fit again.”

According to the clinic’s website, the Plexus System developed by O’Doherty and Tom Griffin works by “rebalancing the life-force energy within and around the body.”