Something for everyone at this year’s All-Ireland Fleadh

THE journey towards the All-Ireland Fleadh will begin this month at the Scottish Fleadh which is taking place in Woodfarm High School on April 26.

For those amongst the six branches of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in Scotland it is the first step on the path that will then lead on to Brentwood for the All-Britain in June.

From there however, the ‘journey’ will be much shorter than usual as this year will see the closest All-Ireland Fleadh and the realisation that it’ll never ever be nearer than it will be for the next two years.

The fleadh this year is celebrating its 74th iteration having had its only break in 2020—due to the Covid-19 pandemic—across a 75-year history. From its humble beginnings in Mullingar, County Westmeath the fleadh has grown and visited large swathes of Ireland. Despite several appearances in Buncrana over the years and even Letterkenny in 2005/06 it was the 2013 Fleadh that raised the biggest eyebrows and that was when the fleadh crossed into the six counties for the first time to the city of Derry.

In that instance, Derry was celebrating being the UK City of Culture and, alongside other large-scale events like BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, the fleadh was the event to underpin the whole project and what a fleadh it was.

For many—given the context of an Irish traditional cultural event taking place in a city with a troubled past—there was certainly an element of trepidation, however, the fleadh was a huge success and since then the question at the back of everyone’s minds was when it was it going to happen again?

Well the answer is this year as the fleadh steps up in scale to fill the city of Belfast!

This event has been in the works for the best part of five years and having been given cross party support within Belfast including—importantly—from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) very much giving the green light, Belfast was ready to bid for the fleadh.

Though a monumental step, this was only the first part of the process, as the host town is awarded by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann each year following a rigorous bid process.

In the end though, with all the facilities within the city at their disposal, the Belfast bid was indeed triumphant and who can doubt the organising committees’ aspirations of being the biggest fleadh ever in attracting one million visitors to the event.

Given its handy location with direct access by air and sea, Belfast will without question be the most accessible fleadh from Scotland that there has ever been, and ever will be and as such, many more visitors are expected to make the journey than in most years.

With virtually the entirety of the Cathedral Quarter being pedestrianised for the event, there will be ample space for fleadh goers to have the ‘Ceol agus Craic’ in the Unesco city of music—a designation shared with Glasgow.

With a whole host of fringe events taking place across the 10-day festival and of course the all-important competitions across the final weekend, there’s sure to be something for everyone at the fleadh.

For those looking towards All-Ireland glory however, they need to take it one step at a time and make sure to get themselves there from the Scottish Fleadh this month.

Paddy Callaghan is the Operations Manager of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in Britain. You can follow him on Twitter: @paddy_box and Instagram: paddy_box and contact him via e-mail at: paddy@comhaltas.co.uk