Hidden away on a narrow lane in Belfast city centre, a forgotten building has been transformed.
Built more than 130 years ago, this was Belfast’s first power station, made to bring electricity to the city; the bulbs strung from the ceiling light up its industrial past, and hint at its future.
For the past week, this formerly derelict site was packed with people, one of many pop-up venues at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann; for the past week, Belfast has seen what it could be.
As Lavery’s – the well-known Belfast pub behind the Electric Light Station – put it: “For one week, we got a glimpse of a different Belfast.”
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Out among the crowds, watching musicians perform on city centre streets pedestrianised specially for the occasion, that different Belfast was palpable.
“When you go back home,” Labhrás Ó Murchú, director general of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, told those present at the fleadh’s closing event at Belfast City Hall on Sunday, “you’ll tell people that you were part of, and you witnessed and you experienced, a miracle here in Belfast this week.
“It was a miracle – a miracle of music, a miracle of friendship, a miracle of creativity.”
City centre cameras put footfall at more than 1.6 million, more than double the 800,000 people predicted and the largest number ever to attend a fleadh, while the £53m economic boost for the city talked of before the event has surely been easily surpassed.
In a city where music and culture has so often been interpreted as a marker of political allegiance or national identity, the fleadh was about neither: “We’ve brought every single community together, and everybody has absolutely loved it,” said Niall McClean, chairman of the fleadh’s host branch Ards Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.
[ In pictures: ‘The Fleadh is unbelievable. It’s brilliant. It’s everywhere’Opens in new window ]
It has been hailed for its diversity and inclusivity, incorporating musicians from the Protestant/unionist/loyalist tradition and ethnic minorities; the Shankill Road Defenders Flute Band was among those to play on the main stage at Belfast City Hall.
On Monday, Ulster-Scots commissioner Lee Reynolds threw down the gauntlet to other festivals, saying, “The successes achieved represent an open challenge to many of the cultural events, institutions and funding bodies in Northern Ireland.
“Why were Comhaltas able to achieve a better representation and relationship with the Ulster Scots and Ulster-British identities in such a short time than they have managed to develop over many years?”
Other successes include the unprecedented pedestrianisation of a vast area of the city centre, bringing to life streets which in recent years have struggled with dereliction and antisocial behaviour.
Alliance has already called on Belfast City Council to “commission a review that learns the lessons of the Fleadh and looks at best practice from other cities”, including around pedestrianisation and late-night public transport.
That this was the fleadh’s first time in Belfast and only its second time in the North – Derry hosted in 2013 – says much about the city’s past, and indeed this island’s; many at the fleadh were old enough to remember when streets, now packed with people, were blocked by security barriers.
Yet for just as many, this is history; their Belfast is the modern, vibrant city showcased by the fleadh.
It was, said Visit Belfast chief executive Gerry Lennon, a “watershed moment” which put the city “firmly on the global stage in spectacular fashion”; a moment, perhaps, when Belfast took a step away from its past, and towards its future.
Today the Electric Light Station is in darkness once again; though the fleadh will be back again next year, the challenge for Belfast will be to make this moment last.
Additional reporting – PA.
