By Alan Healy

No bid has yet been made to bring the All-Ireland Fleadh back to the Derry, it has emerged.

Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the city in August 2013 for the music festival, held during the City of Culture celebrations, which generated £42 million over its eight days.

The most recent Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann recently came to a close in Ennis, County Clare, which also hosted the event in 2016.

Derry hosted the largest ever Fleadh to date in 2013 during the City of Culture celebrations, where 430,000 people flocked to the city.

The Derry Fleadh was the largest and most successful in its 60-year history.

It also marked the first time the All-Ireland Fleadh had been staged in the north.

Speaking at the climax of the Derry Fleadh in August 2013, Labhrás Ó Múrchu, Director General of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the group which organises the massive annual event, said he had ‘no doubt’ that the Fleadh would return to Derry in the next few years.

Sligo then hosted the Fleadh in 2014 and 2015.

Drogheda was named as the host town for Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann 2018.

It will be hosted in conjunction with a local team in Louth led by Louth County Council and the Drogheda Comhaltas

In 2015, Derry City and Strabane District Council gave its backing a bid to bring Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann back to Derry.

At the time, Comhaltas Dhoire said that while it was hoping to bring the Fleadh back to Derry in 2017, it may postpone a bid if Ennis sought to host the event for second year.

Speaking at the council meeting, Gearóid Ó hEára, co-ordinator of Derry’s 2013 Fleadh, said that Derry would be ‘morally obliged’ to withdraw a bid given that Ennis had ‘stepped aside’ to allow the city to compete against Sligo in 2013.

He added that while it had cost £4.6m to host the Fleadh in 2013, they could do it again ‘for about a million’.

However, it’s now emerged that no application has been received from Derry to bring the Fleadh back to the northwest.

Speaking to the Derry News, Mr Ó Murchú said that while he would ‘love to see it happening’, no approach had been to Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann with a view to the Fleadh returning to the city.

“It would be my dearest wish to see it that it would go back to Derry,” he said.

“But they haven’t applied, so we have no application.

“A Derry Fleadh is still being spoken about, and I would love to see it happening, but as I said, we don’t have an application.

“So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Speaking to the Derry News, Mr Ó hEára said that a meeting was scheduled to take place later this month to discuss the possibility of the Fleadh returning to Derry.

“The meeting will be about considering putting a bid in, and we’ll be talking to political people about that, so we’re exploring that at the minute,” he said.

Mr Ó hEára added that if a bid was to put in by Derry, it would be with a view to hosting the Fleadh in ‘two to three years’ time’ given the lead-in period needed.

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