FLEADH CHEOIL NA h\u00c9ireann is expected to bring around 800,000 visitors to Belfast city from August 2-9 this year, organisers have said.<\/p>\n
It is the first time the annual music festival has been held in Belfast, and only the second time it has been held in Northern Ireland, after Derry was the venue in 2013.<\/p>\n
The 2026 event is set to be one of the most culturally diverse in its history, with cross-community participation and a celebration of traditions from across Northern Ireland and beyond.<\/p>\n
Sharon Shannon, L\u00fanasa and Foy Vance are among the artists headlining the landmark cultural celebration.<\/p>\n
The opening ceremony on Sunday August 2 will fuse trad music with dhol drummers, Indian dancers, flute and pipe bands and Highland dancers.<\/p>\n
Organisers have said that this year\u2019s Fleadh in Belfast will be \u201ctruly historic and unique\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBelfast is ready to welcome visitors from far and near for an incredible eight days of celebrating together,\u201d Visit Belfast\u2019s chief executive Gerry Lennon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can really start to feel the energy as the opening ceremony draws near. I have no doubt this will be a truly historic and unique Fleadh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belfast is the birthplace of singers Van Morrison, Ruby Murray and Brian Kennedy, and the city also shaped the sound of bands Ash and Snow Patrol.<\/p>\n
Among the acts at the festival are The Priests Trio Ensemble, \u00d3m\u00f3s na nUltach, Ebb And Flow and Belfast composer and uilleann piper Neil Martin, who will give a multicultural performance blending Irish tradition with sounds from Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.<\/p>\n
There will also be language and identity activities, book and album launches and other non-music events as part of what is expected to be one of the largest cultural events hosted in Belfast.<\/p>\n
Lennon said: \u201cBelfast is ready, and we can\u2019t wait to welcome the hundreds of thousands of people who will visit our city for this truly spectacular event.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelfast is the perfect host city for the Fleadh \u2013 compact, walkable and packed with incredible things to see and do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a city transformed: proud, vibrant and confident, with a well-earned reputation for knowing how to celebrate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a week-long celebration not to be missed. We\u2019re encouraging everyone to gather family and friends, mark the dates in the diary and start planning now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want visitors to have an unforgettable experience and to come back time and time again because, in answer to the great Van Morrison, it really is like this all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FLEADH CHEOIL NA h\u00c9ireann is expected to bring around 800,000 visitors to Belfast city from August 2-9 this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4501,93,26896,61,60,240266,10866,2443,6306],"class_list":["post-569413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-belfast","tag-entertainment","tag-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-traditional-music","tag-music-festivals","tag-northern-ireland","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569413","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=569413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}