Fleadh

A fleadh is an event of Irish traditional music, many of which take place across Ireland and parts of Britain and the U.S. each year.

"Fleadh" (pronounced "flah") simply means "festival" in the Irish language (also known as Gaeilge or Gaelic); the plural is "Fleadhanna".

In Ireland, the Fleadh begins at county level (Ireland has 32 counties, 26 in the Republic and six in Northern Ireland) and then at provincial level in Ulster, Connacht, Leinster and Munster.

The winners and best-placed make it to the All-Ireland Fleadh in August, which is held in a series of venues in the host town, which rotates each year. In August 2005, the event was held in Letterkenny, County Donegal and it is expected to return to the north-western town in 2006.

The first national festival of Irish traditional music was held in Mullingar, early in 1951. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann aimed to make this a great national festival and, at its inaugural meeting in September 1951, came up with the title of Fleadh Cheoil (a Festival of Music).

In the years that followed, the County Fleadh and the Provincial Fleadh found their places in the traditional music calendar. Since then, Fleadh Nua, Fleadh na Breataine (an All-Britain Fleadh Cheoil), regional Fleadhanna in Britain, and two major Fleadhanna in the USA have also become annual CCÉ events.

From its beginning, the goal of the Fleadh Cheoil was to establish standards in Irish traditional music through competition. The Fleadh developed as a mainly competitive event, but it also included many concerts, céilithe, parades, pageants, and street sessions.

Right through the 1960s and 1970s, the Fleadh continued to grow and the number of would-be competitors grew so large that qualifying stages had to be arranged, at county and provincial level, to produce a manageable number of participants for the All-Ireland finals at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann.

Today, nearly 50 years on, the Fleadhanna at each level provide a platform and a meeting place for the thousands of musicians (around 20,000 performers compete in Fleadhanna each year) who carry on the great tradition of playing and cherishing Irish music, songs, and dances.

And when the competitions are over, all can join in impromptu sessions which sometimes last until the early hours.

In Britain, the Fleadh takes place most summers in Finsbury Park, London, England. The first British-based Fleadh was in 1990, and the early events featured mostly Irish acts such as Van Morrison and The Pogues. More recently, however, the event's organisers have attempted to sustain its box-office appeal by introducing more mainstream acts, such as Sting, Neil Young and, in 2004, Bob Dylan.