Bid to bring back Fleadh

Attempts are being made to bring the All-Ireland Fleadh back to Cavan for 2028 and 2029.

Key comhaltas figures are already drumming up support for a formal bid but who will pay the piper?

One suggestion is that Cavan homeowners could foot the bill through a 15% adjustment in their Local Property Tax (LPT) over a period of two years. This was the model employed by organisers in Wexford in co-operation with the local authority.

Virtuoso accordionist and Nyah raconteur Martin Donohoe is behind the latest push, highlighting how the local authority in Wexford successfully ringfenced funding to stage the annual traditional Irish festival and competition.

Cavan successfully hosted the Fleadh from 2010 to 2012, the only county to do so for three years in a row.

The outlay to run the Fleadh in today's money is estimated at around €1.2 million, however Martin points out how Wexford Town attracted over 600,000 visitors in 2024 with around €60 million injected into the local economy in return.

Wexford Town will host the Fleadh again in 2025, before an anticipated move to Belfast for two years after.

“As I see it Cavan has a great shot at bringing the Fleadh back to the county in 2028,” says Martin.

“We should be aiming for that. Wexford was based on the principle that the council run the Fleadh, they took ownership basically, which was excellent, I don't think anyone can deny that and I feel that will be the model going forward.”

Martin credits Cavan County Council for playing a pivotal role in organising and co-ordinating the successive Cavan fleadhanna too.

The music man says he has not yet made a formal approach to the local authority just yet, but has spoken to “one or two individuals”.

He claims to have broached the subject with members of the newly reformed Cavan Chamber of Commerce also.

“There is a man now as Chief Executive, and there's nobody better than Eoin Doyle to understand the language of the Fleadh Ceoil. Plus he possibly sees the potential of it coming back.”

Martin believes Cavan's hosting in 2010-12 was a “game changer”.

Any bid process would include highlighting the town's infrastructure, venues, and its ability to accommodate potentially even larger crowds than before.

“We used two football pitches for the campsites. In Wexford they needed five. So it has grown, every year since Cavan. Ever since it left us, it has grown, year on year. Cavan was a game changer in so many ways. We changed it into what it has now become, more open, more inclusive, and that’s still being carried through,” says Martin, who believes Cavan and its council have shown it has the capabilities to host major public events as it has done with the Taste of Cavan, and Cavan Calling, among others. But, he feels, it will “all come down to hunger”.

“How hungry are the council, how hungry are the business people and the people of Cavan to make this happen? It’s a massive event management thing now. [Former County Manager] Jack Keyes did an awful lot of work. He delegated. Twenty eight people form a Fleadh Executive Committe. Half of them were council people, and they were excellent organisers. The late Kevin Smith for example, Marian Smith from Virginia, and Angela O’Reilly. The first thing we have to do is figure out how to replace them.

“But Belfast are in the hat at the moment. Cavan was last three in a row and will be the last. If there are stakeholders maybe interested for 2028 and 2029, the time is now to start sitting around a table.”