ENNIS is tuning up for the return of the Fleadh Nua this weekend.

In what promises to be an exciting festival, the 2022 Fleadh Nua in Ennis is packed with concerts, céilís, sessions, recitals, Irish dance competitions, street entertainment and CD launches. This year’s festival runs from Saturday 28th May to Monday June 6th.

Since 1974 Fleadh Nua has developed from a three-day event to a festival spanning 10 days, with more than 120 separate events. Among the highlights include concerts featuring Cherish the Ladies and the Kilfenora Céilí Band, both of whom had been booked for the 2020 festival.

There are many Irish traditional festivals organised throughout the summer months but there are few people who will dispute that Fleadh Nua which started in Dublin in 1970, is the forerunner of them all. The concept of bringing together concerts, céilithe, music, song and dancing workshops, street entertainment, and much more was innovative in its time. However, it’s still a winning formula today as evidenced by the thousands of visitors who flock to the festival every May for a week of unsurpassed traditional entertainment.

Committee Member, Micheál Ó Riabhaigh explained, “It’s really a festival geared at not competition but more a celebration and partaking, we try and have events to cater for as many people as possible who have an interest in traditional music and singing”.

Ó Riabhaigh is hopeful the festival will give a lift to the local hospitality sector. “We feel we have something to offer for everyone that comes, it is that type of a friendly festival where people are made welcome and feel very welcome when they come, without a doubt if you have foreign tourists coming in and hopefully we will have a lot more of them coming back this year, everybody wins with it”.