Musicians playing at Áras an Mhuilinn during the Westmeath County Fleadh last weekend.

Comhaltas wants locals' help in getting Fleadh message out

Eilís Ryan

A new Facebook page has been set up to publicise Mullingar’s drive to be chosen as host town for the All-Ireland Fleadh.

Within just five days facebook.com/mullingarFleadh/ had almost 800 ‘likes’.

Comhaltas now wants everyone local to like the page – and also to message their friends asking that they also like it.

“We want people talking about this Fleadh bid,” Ronan Casey told a meeting on Mullingar's bid to host the All-Ireland Fleadh on May 9 last.

“This is volunteers doing this,” he said, saying that with previous events, Mullingar had not united in the way that towns such as Athlone has done – but it needs to.

“If we all work together for a couple of months, we can make serious history here for Mullingar, and more importantly make serious money for the business people and the communities here in Mullingar.”

“The more people that know about this, the more chance we have of bringing this event to this town,” said Joe Connaire, Westmeath Comhaltas chairman.

 

Publicity

The arrival of the Fleadh would see the arrival of stars from the traditional music scene arrive in town, Deputy Willie Penrose said.

And, he continued, there would be immeasurable publicity to be gained through hosting the event.

“The president comes and opens it, and there is huge media coverage,” he said.

He said RTÉ does a six-week series that goes out weekly for in the January and February after the Fleadh.

“Fleadh TV is on every night,” he continued, adding that this attracts 1.4m viewers.

“You couldn’t buy it,” he said of the publicity that the Fleadh brings, adding that the event attracts stars and champion musicians listing off big name artists who attended at Cavan.

“This will promote Mullingar no end, and this is something we need to do,” he said, adding that 450,000 people attended the Fleadh in Clare, and that there were 100,000 people in Ennis on the Saturday.

“This was bigger than Croke Park,” he said, adding that the spend had been close to €45m.

Deputy Penrose said that Comhaltas now has branches in places as diverse as the UK, Scotland, Canada and Vietnam, and it also has links in Argentina.

 

Local musicians

Comhaltas chairman Joe Connaire stressed that Westmeath Comhaltas would be ensuring that local musicians were put on stage.

“There’s one thing when the Fleadh comes to Mullingar, and I am going to make sure of this, that the local musicians of Westmeath are put on stage, number one,” he said.

“We are going to use our musicians to showcase what we have here,” he said.