{"id":6388,"date":"2025-08-18T04:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T04:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/6388\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T04:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T04:48:14","slug":"what-belfasts-top-musicians-made-of-wexfords-fleadh-and-why-2026-will-be-the-biggest-and-the-best-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/6388\/","title":{"rendered":"What Belfast\u2019s top musicians made of Wexford\u2019s Fleadh and why 2026 will be the \u2018biggest and the best of all time\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Wexford hosted the largest ever attended Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann last week, but Belfast has set its sights on going bigger again next year\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Tracy Kelly receiving the Harp from Eddie Taaffe (Chairman Fleadh Cheoil committee, Wexford), Cllr Joe Sullivan (cathaoirleach Wexford County Council), Mayor Cllr Garry Laffan at the handing over of the Fleadh Cheoil to Belfast on Sunday evening. Pic: Jim Campbell\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/6b8603f8-17d1-431f-a792-1c5edaddb6ba.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Tracy Kelly receiving the Harp from Eddie Taaffe (Chairman Fleadh Cheoil committee, Wexford), Cllr Joe Sullivan (cathaoirleach Wexford County Council), Mayor Cllr Garry Laffan at the handing over of the Fleadh Cheoil to Belfast on Sunday evening. Pic: Jim Campbell<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Niall McClean and Mervyn MccCleery are the Chairperson and PRO respectively, of Ards Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann, the Belfast branch which will bring the world\u2019s largest annual festival of Irish traditional music and dance to the city for the first time ever in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">They were both staying in Whites of Wexford, in the heart of town, and by the time we spoke on Saturday night, the end was in sight. Perhaps relief for both of them that a long, hot, relentlessly busy and enjoyable week away from home was coming to an end. But a little nervousness that Belfast\u2019s first ever Fleadh would immediately follow the largest ever and most successful Fleadh in history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wexford hosted the largest ever attended Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann last week, but Belfast has set its sights&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[4247,18,117,4248,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-6388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cillian-boggan","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388","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=6388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}