Verdict on the Fleadh Cheoil, Belfast’s first ever. A triumph…

Newton Emersons’s verdict in the Irish Times can hardy be bettered as a rare and heartening cross community success …

Pleasant streets can only partly explain the numbers in the city centre. What unionist visitors are discovering is that the Fleadh is not repellingly “political”, as that term is applied in Northern Ireland. Culture is always political, of course, but the songs are not sectarian, the atmosphere is not partisan and the national symbolism is discrete. I noticed only one Tricolour in a whole afternoon, contrary to the TUV’s fears.

Unionists are often presumed to be hostile to any manifestation of Irish culture, a view underscored by growing tensions over bilingual English and Irish signs.

But signage arguments are primarily territorial, not cultural. Unionists have always maintained an interest in traditional Irish music and dancing, and this has always been evident at festivals in unionist-majority towns. Northern Ireland is so divided that many nationalists have not witnessed this – just as unionists have been oblivious to the Fleadh.

Féile an Phobail, the West Belfast Festival, is also taking place this week, providing a well-timed illustration of the difference between the political and the non-political in Northern Ireland terms. Although some unionists do attend Féile, they will never flock to an event associated with Sinn Féin, where discussions and exhibitions take a republican perspective on the Troubles and a united Ireland.

The contrast many cannot help drawing is between the Fleadh and the Twelfth of July. Efforts have been under way since 2007 to create a week of cultural activities around the Twelfth, heroically branded as “Orangefest”…

But there’s work to do…

Brian Walker

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London