Stephen Goss: How a music festival hosted in Belfast might just signal a shift in Northern Irish politics

Dr Stephen Goss is a freelance historian, lectures in history and politics in London, and is a Conservative councillor in Reading.

The big story from Northern Ireland this month is the truly remarkable success of Belfast hosting Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann this year. ‘The Fleadh’, as it is known, is an annual music festival which has been running for 75 years. A different village, town, or city on the island of Ireland is selected to host the festivities which celebrate and promote traditional Irish music and dance. In a similar way to the Edinburgh Fringe now overshadowing the Edinburgh International Festival, the ‘craic agus ceol’ surrounding the Fleadh has eclipsed the formal competitions at its heart.

This was its first visit to Belfast. The organisers expected 800,000 people; instead, footfall of over 1.6 million visitors has been recorded over the eight days. To put this perspective, the population of Northern Ireland is approximately 1.9 million.

Yet, the statistics scarcely convey the atmosphere.

Serendipitously I was home in Belfast while the Fleadh was taking place. Streets were cleaned and pedestrianised, businesses entered into the spirit of the event, and music and drinking spilled out from pubs and venues into the public realm. A city usually divided and dysfunctional showed it could be relaxed and welcoming. A triumph for Belfast, its economy and tourism, it sets the stage for what will hopefully be an even greater success when the Fleadh returns to the city next August.

However, such is the nature of Northern Irish politics, the event could not escape attempts to force it into Northern Ireland’s familiar zero-sum narrative. I have written previously about nationalist contrived outrage, and it raised its ugly head again on this occasion. Some nationalist and republican commentators seemed invested in unionist rejection. Jude Collins predicted there would be ‘distressingly few Protestants/unionists availing themselves of the chance to hear the best in Irish music, dance and culture’. There is too much bigotry, dismissiveness, and sectarianism in this assessment from the Belfast republican press for me to summarise here. The general assumption was that unionists and loyalists would boycott, protest, or at best ignore the Fleadh. Any that held their nose and engaged with it were to be considered doing so for purely cynical, political reasons.

While Jim Allister and the Traditional Unionist Voice raised concerns over the cost and disruption caused by the event (and objections to a Post Office selling Irish tricolours), unionism in fact embraced the Fleadh. Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Edwin Poots MLA (briefly DUP Leader; the DUP’s Liz Truss), stated at an event in Stormont to welcome performers to the Fleadh in Belfast:

‘Musical traditions flow through the veins of the community across Northern Ireland… This is an opportunity to celebrate all the different traditions that have been passed from one generation to the next and to share them with new audiences, and for Belfast to open its doors and demonstrate the warmth of its welcome’.

The Deputy First Minister, DUP MLA Emma Little-Pengelly spoke from the main stage of the Fleadh. She said: ‘Respecting another’s culture never diminishes our own… Confidence in who we are gives us the freedom to celebrate the richness of others…. Culture need not divide us’. She spoke of a ‘cultural heritage that belongs to no single tradition. A cultural future that certainly does not’.

Those were not merely gracious words delivered from a platform. Loyalist marching bands were not left at the festival’s edge, either literally or figuratively. The Belfast Bands Forum was represented on the organising committee and presented an Ulster Bands Showcase at the Titanic Slipways. Flute and accordion bands, Lambeg drummers, pipe bands, and Highland dancers all took part. The strongest rebuttal to the caricatures came from the welcome these musicians received. The Shankill Road Defenders were applauded not only at the City Hall, but Band member Dr. Gordon Ramsey described the reception as ‘extraordinary’. He said they had received substantially more support than criticism from within their own community.

This was not loyalism holding its nose, nor unionism cynically trying to appropriate somebody else’s celebration; it was confident participation. As Belfast Bands Forum chairman Darren Leighton observed:

‘One of the most important things for us has been challenging some of the stereotypes around the marching band community… we simply put our musicians and our culture on the stage and allowed people to experience it for themselves… Our musicians stepped outside their comfort zones this week, performed in front of new audiences and were welcomed everywhere they went’.

Despite the assumptions of many, unionism was far from outraged at the Fleadh and its success. However, this month has seen indignation within unionism. With the DUP in turmoil over who knew what and said nothing about the now convicted Jeffrey Donaldson, for the first time in decades, the Ulster Unionists have overtaken the DUP in the polls.

Therefore, it seemed like typical Ulster Unionist self-sabotage when last week the party leader fell out with his Health Minister. Leader Jon Burrows publicly declared that emergency general surgery must remain at Causeway Hospital, placing himself directly at odds with former leader (twice) Mike Nesbitt. Although Nesbitt had not yet taken a final decision, he accused Burrows of imposing a new ‘red line’ and objected to discovering his leader’s position from the media.

This comes after another former leader of the Ulster Unionists, Doug Beattie, resigned from the party in May. So, was the outrage of both Party Leader and Health Minister typical – or contrived? Although located in East Londonderry, Causeway Hospital also serves communities within Burrows’s own North Antrim constituency. Burrows was co-opted as North Antrim MLA only last August. He has yet to face the electorate. Defending a hospital serving communities across his north-coast hinterland allows him to demonstrate ahead of next May’s Assembly election that he is more than a drop-in. It presents him as a decisive leader, willing to challenge the health bureaucracy on behalf of patients, and a representative who will do whatever it takes to defend the interests of his constituents.

The appointment of Lagan Valley MLA Robbie Butler as Nesbitt’s successor may be more strategically significant still. Butler was the alternative for party leader earlier this year. Giving him Northern Ireland’s most prominent ministerial portfolio provides a platform from which to build a much larger public profile. Butler has yet to be drawn on the decision he will make regarding the Causeway Hospital.

DUP turmoil allowed Alliance’s Sorcha Eastwood to snatch Lagan Valley from unionism at the 2024 general election. The same poll that puts the Ulster Unionists ahead of the DUP has Alliance at a five-year low of ten per cent. With the Ulster Unionists now polling ahead of both parties, Butler has an opportunity to establish himself as the principal challenger to Eastwood.

The Fleadh demonstrated how Northern Ireland’s familiar assumptions should not be taken as certainties. Loyalists were expected to sulk outside; instead, they marched onto the stage and were warmly applauded. If Burrows is returned at next May’s Assembly election with his own mandate, and Butler emerges as the strongest challenger for Donaldson’s former Westminster fortress of Lagan Valley, what looked like the first shots of another Ulster Unionist civil war may instead prove to have been the opening salvo of its long overdue electoral recovery.