By Anne Cadwallader
BELFAST — The 11th West Belfast Festival “Feile an Phobail,” originally founded to help prevent annual rioting in nationalist areas, was a resounding success again this year.
The festival now brings in more than _1 million in extra business, not to mention giving a morale boost to an economically deprived area where unemployment is high.
Politics, music, dance, local history, drama, poetry and street parties drew an estimated 90,000 participants to Europe’s largest community festival last weekend.
An audience of 15,000 came to see local star Brian Kennedy sing with Mary Black and Shane McGowan and The Popes. It was by far the largest concert ever seen in the area and bodes well for more.
For an area where many people cannot afford a foreign holiday, the feile brings a little of the outside world to the people, with a Mexican band, international food fare, Cuban input and home-grown Irish music from all over the island.
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The festival radio station (Triple FM, “A station once again”) is now applying for a year-round radio license, with each annual festival becoming an international draw and attracting more positive media attention.
On the serious side, there were political debates involving Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, Roy Garland of the Ulster Unionist Party, Monica McWilliams of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition and an Irish government minister, Eamon O’Cuiv.
One of the most successful meetings was for the “Forgotten Victims,” which drew a large crowd to speak of those shot dead by the RUC and British Army whose family feel they have been overlooked by officialdom.
But the feile is also about young people enjoying themselves the way young people have always done, with plenty of craic, street parties, discos and the like, leaving pockets empty and heads sore and everyone looking forward to next year.