First published in the Irish Independent, August 19th
How do you define Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the annual extravaganza of traditional Irish music which came to a rousing crescendo last Sunday in Wexford Town?
It’s kind of like an All-Ireland final, in terms of craic and excitement, community and bonhomie, nail-biting tension and exultation. Only better than that, because there’s music involved. (Sport is great, I love sport, but let’s face it: music is the soul speaking, it reaches far deeper.)
So the Fleadh is like a great gig. Only better than that too, because it goes on for a full week. And unlike a gig, with its inherent separation between performer and consumer, this is much more – pardon the buzzword – interactive.
Run annually since 1951 by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the Fleadh is a mad, whirling carnival of concerts, All-Ireland competitions, buskers, pub sessions planned and spontaneous, classes, workshops – and, this year, the gimmicky but fun “biggest céilí in history”. There’s even an actual carnival, down by the beautiful quays.
So you can step into the Fleadh, engage with it, from many perspectives: musician or dancer (whether professional or hobbyist), casual audience member, tourist, party-goer, trad aficionado, competitor, supportive/nervous parent, or a combination of the above.
If you’re “in the game”, as we were last Saturday (Under 15 grúpa cheoil final; we won!), Fleadh whizzes the best of sport and music into an intoxicating cocktail of artistic satisfaction and competitive edge.
It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old: the Fleadh, as with trad/folk in general, is very cross-generational. The atmosphere, walking around the streets of Wexford into evening-time, was almost overwhelmingly genial, relaxed and peaceable.
You see mammies and daddies enjoying a beer while the kids have an ice-cream, or maybe batter away at a few jigs for extra pocket-money, and think: now, this is civilised. As someone texted me afterwards, watching Fleadh coverage on TG4 was like watching Glastonbury “but with normal people instead of assholes”.
There’s a great volunteer spirit too, as with GAA or Tidy Towns or communities pulling together in the face of tragedy. How nice it was, how heartening, in a cynical and hyper-monetised world, to see armies of people wandering around, bright orange tee-shirts reading “VOLUNTEER – HERE TO HELP”, giving their time for no reward except the pleasure of making someone else’s day a little better.
On top of all that, Wexford itself is a spectacularly charming town and county. No wonder record crowds 800,000 flocked to the sunny south-east for this year’s lollapalooza – finding accommodation was a nightmare! – among them an up-and-coming young singer called Ed Sheeran…
But the Fleadh, and Comhaltas events at county or provincial level, are more than fun and music. This is, very specifically, a celebration and continuation of Irish culture and traditions. It’s age-old, primal, and as vibrant as ever. The ghosts of the past don’t just walk among us, they pick up a fiddle and encourage you to join in.
(Incidentally, not that it matters, but all involved aren’t necessarily Irish – people come from all over to watch and participate. Japan, especially, has an incredibly strong connection, and sends competitors every year.)
You could say the Fleadh showcases the very best of us, in many ways. That’s a term often used, by people with every sort of social or political agenda; often, though, they’re talking about things which are general to humanity as a whole.
Friendliness, warmth, generosity, humour, strong sense of family or community: all wonderful, but you find them around the world. They’re not specific to here, whereas Irish music, dancing, singing, lilting, Gaeilge and storytelling, the Fleadh’s bread and butter, by definition are.
The place is changing, at a pace that feels uncontrollable at times. We have no idea how it will wash out, but one thing is inarguable: the more multicultural any country gets, the more diluted become indigenous arts and heritage.
That’s obvious, regardless of where you stand on immigration and demographic change. It happens everywhere, inevitably; there’s an arrogance in this exceptionalist thinking that Ireland, somehow, will be different.
You mightn’t have a problem with this; some people have zero interest in trad or GAA or Irish bardic poetry or whatever. Personally, I think it would be tragic for the genuinely ancient, globally unique culture of a tiny nation to weaken or disappear.
Again, no Irish exceptionalism here: I’d feel the same at Icelandic or Vietnamese or Inuit traditions being in an equally parlous position. The world is poorer without any of them.
Irish culture is precious, and needs to be protected. Not just by the likes of Unesco, who’ve recognised hurling and camogie as part of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”, but by ourselves.
Yet here’s a funny thing: even as Official Ireland seems evermore hell-bent on selling it out – or at least allowing it wither on the vine – for economic gain or a pat on the head from a transnational “elite”, at grassroots level our culture is more robust than ever. The amount of young people learning trad, dancing sean nós, speaking Irish and playing GAA is astonishing, and growing all the time.
It’s like Newton’s Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The more that technocrats and internationalists try to smother the thing, the harder the people push back, through some marvellous instinct of rebellion and identity.
Walt Whitman famously wrote, “I sound my barbaric yawp across the roofs of the world.” The Fleadh is the sound of that in an Irish context. Corporate Ireland hates all this “local” or “indigenous” stuff; they really do think it’s barbaric.
But Whitman meant the word in a positive way, and so do I. Play your tune, folks, play it loud, let the whole world hear it.
Darragh McManus, author and journalist 