Mullingar Town Park designated for busking for money

There are two things the organisers want to see during the Fleadh Cheoil – plenty of support for the acts performing at the official concerts and “loads of traditional music on the streets”.

They are not encouraging buskers playing for money on the streets – instead, there is a designated area in Mullingar Town Park for busking for money, and the organising committee have ensured that there will be plenty of vendors there to facilitate performers and audiences.

Joe Connaire, chair of the Fleadh Executive Committee, addressing a meeting of the county council in March 2020, said explained the thinking on that: “Busking for money is not something that Comhaltas ever intended seeing at the Fleadh Cheoil.”

He was speaking during a presentation on how preparations were progressing at that time.

He said that while there may have been busking for money at other Fleadhanna Cheoil, the Mullingar committee was against it; he said the committee also opposed to drinking sessions in the street.

“We are trying to make a few changes in relation to street entertainment: amplified music has been a big thing in the past, but we don’t want that here.”

What the committee do want is music played widely on the town’s thoroughfares – in fact, he said “in every nook and cranny” as well as in the pubs. “But we don’t want to see a box in front.”

“Fleadh Cheoil na Éireann is not about coming to pick up your couple of hundred euro every day: that’s the wrong message.

“So we decided that we will have the town park set up for people who want to busk for money. We are not excluding them – but for the last 10 years or 20 years people have been talking about this, but they have never acted on it.”

On the question of finance in general, Mr Connaire said that the fleadh would cost €1.5 million (the figure at that time; the actual figure now in 2022 is significantly higher) to run, but the income that it will bring into Mullingar over the two years is expected to be between €45m and €50m per annum.

As many as half a million visitors – including some from abroad – are expected to attend.

“Every business in town will benefit from the fleadh, because of the amount of people coming through,” he stated.

Describing the decision to grant Mullingar the right to host the fleadh as “a dream”, Mr Connaire said that Mullingar has 18 venues arranged for concerts and competitions, and they are all within walking distance of each other.

“By contrast, in Dundalk, which last hosted the fleadh, a car was necessary as some of the venues were four or five miles apart.

“We have schools, churches, halls, and basically when the people come to Mullingar, they will realise that Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann should be awarded to Mullingar every year,” he said, adding that Eircodes will be used to make it easier for visitors to find the various locations.

Mr Connaire said he was especially grateful to the church authorities which had granted the use of the Cathedral of Christ the King, which had saved the committee the cost of renting a festival dome for the duration of the fleadh.