![\"teenage-boys-and-girls-busking-on-the-street-at-the-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann-belfast-northern-ireland-6th-august-2026\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786206795_201_.jpeg\")
\n Teenage boys and girls busking on the street at Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
PASSENGERS WHO TRAVELLED on a late-night train to Newry from the Fleadh arrived back to a locked station.<\/p>\n
Belfast is hosting Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann for the first time and the week-long event comes to a close tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Visitor numbers were estimated to have topped one million by Friday evening, already exceeding the 800,000 expected by Sunday, with music and the tapping of Irish dancing filling the city centre streets.<\/p>\n
In anticipation of the large number of visitors, Northern Ireland\u2019s public transport service Translink announced additional late night services.<\/p>\n
One of these additional services is a late-night train to Newry.<\/p>\n
It departed last night from Belfast\u2019s Grand Central Station and arrived at Newry Train Station at around 1.20am overnight.<\/p>\n
However, a group of around 30 passengers arrived at a locked station that had already closed for the night.<\/p>\n
They were stuck at the shut station for around 45 minutes.<\/p>\n
One of the passengers, Anne Greer, told BBC News NI: \u201cTo our surprise the entire station was closed, so we couldn\u2019t exit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re all trapped on the platforms for over 40 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the train crews \u201chelped as much as they could, but there was nothing they could do\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were completely gobsmacked as to why they\u2019ve arrived to a completely closed and locked train station,\u201d Greer added.<\/p>\n
Shortly before 2am, a worker arrived at the station to let the passengers out.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Translink said: \u201cA group of passengers experienced an operational issue exiting Newry station after the arrival of the last train at 1.20am this morning, we\u2019re looking into the incident and apologise to the passengers affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe train crew remained with the passengers to ensure their safety while the issue was resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the success of the first\u00a0Fleadh in Belfast has been described as a \u201cdream come true\u201d for organisers.<\/p>\n
\n Teenage boys and girls busking on the street at Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n
President Catherine Connolly, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Chris Bryant, First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly are among the hundreds of thousands who have attended the Fleadh this week.<\/p>\n
Niall McClean, chair of Ards Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann (CCE), the host branch for Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann in Belfast, said it\u2019s been \u201cbeen absolutely unbelievable, way beyond our expectations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowds from the very start have exceeded all we thought, we\u2019re over the moon, and there is still two days to go,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been going to Fleadhs for 40 years and the atmosphere is always good wherever you go, but I\u2019d been maybe a little bit sceptical with it being a complex city that it would work still \u2013 but it\u2019s been extraordinary, the streets are full of music.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting busier and busier and then the last day is always the highlight to see the Ceilidh band finish at the Gig Rig, so I think Sunday will be even bigger again \u2013 we don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going to put everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"niall\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786206795_93_.png\")
\n Niall McClean hailed an \u2018unbelievable\u2019 success PA<\/p>\n
PA\n<\/p>\n
In terms of the Fleadh returning to Belfast next year, McClean said there are always lessons to learn, but that generally events have exceeded all their expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be hard to top when you see what has happened this week. The second year of the Fleadh is always bigger again, so I think Belfast is going to have to get an extension,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
-With additional reporting from Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PASSENGERS WHO TRAVELLED on a late-night train to Newry from the Fleadh arrived back to a locked station.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[663,9,10,31651,18,13,14,260617,4248,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,11605,5,7,8,84556],"class_list":["post-627340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-belfast","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-co-down","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fleadh","tag-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-newry","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-translink"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117060855934913647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}