{"id":457503,"date":"2026-05-20T00:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/457503\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T00:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:24:11","slug":"communities-come-together-for-a-few-tunes-as-charles-and-camilla-get-a-taste-of-a-belfast-fleadh-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/457503\/","title":{"rendered":"Communities come together for a few tunes as Charles and Camilla get a taste of a Belfast fleadh \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under grey skies in Belfast<\/a>\u2019s Titanic Quarter, a note-perfect rendition of I\u2019ll Tell Me Ma welcomed Britain\u2019s King Charles<\/a> and Queen Camilla to the city.<\/p>\n

Irish traditional musicians from Ards Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann performed the folk song on Tuesday on the first day of the couple\u2019s visit to Northern Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The event celebrated the upcoming Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann<\/a>, which is due to be hosted in Belfast for the first time in August.<\/p>\n

Before their arrival, a flute band from the Belfast Bands Forum \u2013 representing marching bands from the Protestant, Unionist and loyalist communities \u2013 blasted out Dawning of the Day.<\/p>\n

Irish dancers went over their steps with the Ards Comhaltas musicians in a collaboration they have rehearsed since October.<\/p>\n

Bodhr\u00e1ns were handed to the royal couple as they joined the special performance.<\/p>\n

\"BodhránBodhr\u00e1n player Dominic McClean and his mother, Bronagh McClean. Photograph: Sean\u00edn Graham <\/p>\n

Centre stage was Dominic McClean, an 11-year-old bodhr\u00e1n player from Bangor, who said he was excited about the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been playing since I was seven. I was a wee bit nervous about today. But the king and queen were nice and interested in what I was doing,\u201d he said after the performance.<\/p>\n

Fiddle player Niall McClean, Dominic\u2019s father, said the royal visitors gave a \u201chuge stamp of approval\u201d to the fleadh.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Catherine Connolly warns against \u2018normalising slaughter\u2019 in speech during first official UK visitOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were excited to hear what the fleadh was all about. Today gave them a real flavour of it,\u201d said McClean, who is chair of Ards Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann, the host branch of this year\u2019s fleadh.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve been working on from the very start was to bring all the communities together.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we\u2019re Irish traditional musicians we\u2019ve been working very hard with the Bands Forum. We saw that today when we mixed together and played a few tunes.<\/p>\n

\"NiallNiall McClean, chair of Ards Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann. Photograph: Sean\u00edn Graham <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s so important. The fleadh is for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polish and Ukrainian dancers also took part, along with Kurdish, Mexican and African musicians, to \u201cshowcase the city\u2019s diversity, a cornerstone of Belfast\u2019s Fleadh Cheoil programme\u201d, organisers said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, it was announced that Charles is due to make his first state visit to Ireland since becoming king.<\/p>\n

President Catherine Connolly<\/a> said he \u201cgraciously accepted\u201d her invitation during their meeting in Buckingham Palace in London yesterday.<\/p>\n

\"IrishIrish dancers Kerry Cudlip and Olivia Reid. Photograph: Sean\u00edn Graham <\/p>\n

Following the Belfast royal visit, Irish dancer Kerry Cudlip from Comber said the event was important. \u201cIt\u2019s an endorsement of what we\u2019re doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dancer Olivia Reid said there were \u201cabsolutely a lot of nerves\u201d ahead of the performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone thought it was pretty exciting. The king asked us if we were professionals \u2013 which we\u2019re not,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a two-minute routine involving dancers from different dancing schools. We\u2019ve performed it at other events \u2013 it\u2019s been edited as more people have joined us. Some of us play instruments as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s weird now it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under grey skies in Belfast\u2019s Titanic Quarter, a note-perfect rendition of I\u2019ll Tell Me Ma welcomed Britain\u2019s King…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4501,3656,93,26896,61,60,7428,2443],"class_list":["post-457503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-belfast","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-entertainment","tag-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-king-charles","tag-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457503","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=457503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}