{"id":720728,"date":"2026-07-31T10:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/720728\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T10:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:30:09","slug":"belfast-fleadh-everything-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-the-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/720728\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast Fleadh: Everything you need to know ahead of the festival."},"content":{"rendered":"

The opening ceremony, external<\/a> starts at noon on Sunday 2 August on a specially-constructed “Gig Rig” stage in the grounds of Belfast City Hall. <\/p>\n

It will showcase traditional music, song and dance with performances from local musicians, highland pipers, south Asian dancers, and a Riverdance star. <\/p>\n

More than eight hours of free live performances are planned, with acts including the Hot House Flowers, the Blackwater C\u00e9il\u00ed Band and Sharon Shannon on the bill. <\/p>\n

Shannon, an internationally acclaimed accordion player, has previously performed with the likes of U2’s Bono, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle and The Waterboys. <\/p>\n

“I’m really looking forward to the gig,” she told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme.<\/a><\/p>\n

She recalled competing in the All-Ireland Fleadh herself as a child.<\/p>\n

“It’s hugely important,” she said. “It’s a focus for a lot of young people when they’re learning music.”<\/p>\n

Shannon said the event also provided an opportunity for young people to meet musicians of their own age from all over the island. <\/p>\n

“For us, it wasn’t just the competition, it was the excitement of meeting up with friends and having sessions,” she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opening ceremony, external starts at noon on Sunday 2 August on a specially-constructed “Gig Rig” stage in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-720728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}