The streets of central Belfast heaved with revelers as the sound of spirited jigs streamed from open pub doors. Buskers played reels as bystanders tapped their feet. And on the main stage in front of City Hall, a young singer encouraged the crowd to join her in a traditional Irish-language song of welcome.
The world’s biggest annual celebration of Irish music and culture, the Fleadh Cheoil (pronounced “flah KYOL,” Irish for “Festival of Music”), had come to town, taking over the heart of a city where such a celebration would once have been unthinkable. The music, dancing and Irish language on display have long been signifiers of the region’s mostly Catholic Irish nationalist community, though in recent years that has shifted.
It was a sign of just how far Belfast has come, a generation after the bloody sectarian conflict known as “the Troubles” engulfed Northern Ireland from the late 1960s through the 1990s and shaped the world’s view of the territory.
“If anyone had told us in those days that this would be happening here, it would have been a fairy tale,” said Maggie Smith, 66, who has lived in Belfast since her college days. “We wouldn’t have believed them.”
Known here simply as the Fleadh, the annual Irish festival and competition is run by a nonprofit that promotes traditional Irish music, dance and language on the island. It usually takes place in the Republic of Ireland.
This year’s edition, which runs through Aug. 9, is transforming Belfast into a sprawling party, with about 800,000 people expected to take part. It is only the second time the Fleadh has been held in Northern Ireland (Derry hosted the 2013 edition), and the first time in Belfast. And it’s coming back again next year.
For local people, the sense of pride — that they had pulled this off in a place where expressions of identity have long been contentious — was palpable.
“It’s phenomenal, it’s buzzing — it’s absolutely jumping,” said Jonny Rogan, 45, a documentary maker from Belfast who attended the festival with his daughter. “I think this is a big moment for Belfast. I actually think it’s bigger than anybody realizes.”
Once, a so-called ring of steel encircled Belfast’s commercial heart in a mile-and-a-half-long security cordon intended to prevent paramilitary bombings. But the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998 by leaders of Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland, halted most of the violence and began easing the sectarian divide between the mostly Protestant unionists who want the region to remain part of the United Kingdom and the mostly Catholic Irish nationalists, or republicans, who have long sought unification with the Republic of Ireland.
This week, the same streets are pedestrianized for festivalgoers to move freely.
Some 1,300 volunteers helped to direct visitors, and the event’s organizers took pains to ensure that it was inclusive of cultural expression from across the sectarian divide. A marching band showcase on Thursday featured Lambeg drumming, pipe bands and Scottish country dancing of Northern Irish Unionist and Ulster Scots culture.
Some of the bands historically had links with paramilitary groups, but they are also a critical part of loyalist identity for many. It would once have been an unlikely addition to the festival, representative of a community that often found itself at odds with Irish identity. But tickets sold out weeks ago.
Darren Leighton, the chairman of the Belfast Bands Forum, said the festival was a chance to present the positive side of Northern Ireland’s marching band culture.
“If I wasn’t for the band, I wouldn’t have had any opportunity growing up,” said Leighton, 35. “We really didn’t have youth clubs, youth facilities or any training prospects. The band is where you went to learn.”
Cross-community efforts had been at the center of the bid to host the Fleadh, said Mary Jo McCanny, a senior manager at Visit Belfast, the city’s official tourism agency. “We’re becoming more and more multicultural,” she said. “And we have two traditional communities here. We wanted both to embrace this.”
The festival is as much about the events on the main stages as it is about the dozens of informal music and meet-ups peppered across the city. Young musicians, many of whom were also taking part in competitions later in the week, played tunes on street corners. Musicians from around the world who play traditional Irish music met up to play together in pubs.
The MAC art center was transformed into an Irish language hub where visitors could take classes, visit exhibitions or simply chat with other Irish speakers.
The artist Fionnuala Duffin, 47, was running a printmaking workshop there. She was also teaching people a “cúpla focal” (pronounced “KOO-pluh FUK-ul”) — Irish for “a few words.”
She said the festival felt like the culmination of years in which Belfast has flourished into a more diverse, multicultural and inclusive place.
“It’s like, when we grew up here, everything was in black and white,” Duffin said as she wiped a smudge of paint from her hand. “And now, Belfast is in color.”
Discussion about this post