Fleadhing High 🎻☘️

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic is back on this fine Friday with a Fleadh-themed edition of our weekly newsletter. The Craic is the weekly newsletter from Shift, our app connecting Irish and Irish-interested folks around the world. You ain’t got Shift yet? By gum, get it here, fella. And if you’d like The Craic every week in a friend’s inbox, stick their email in here.

News from Home

Fleadhing High. The 2026 Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann is in full swing, and as we predicted, Belfast – sometimes wounded, never defeated – is a brilliant and unique host. It’s been amazing, with ceol and craic on every corner. We struggle to think of any festival that weaves its way into the heart of a city quite like the Fleadh. Indeed, we mentioned last week that up to 800,000 visitors were expected - but it is now estimated to be one million, making it the biggest Fleadh ever. It’s been a blast so far, though we are a bit glum that it’s wrapping up this weekend. Just a reminder that the Fleadh will be back in Belfast next summer, too, so get her booked if you missed this one.

Guinness Time. Two interesting stout stories emerged this week. The first is that there are plans to double production of Guinness, with the new boss of Diageo (the lads who own Guinness) keen to cash in on the black stuff’s trendiness, especially with younger folk. It’s increasing from 8.2m hectoliters to 15.7m by 2031; that’s equivalent to 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools, we are told. Second, divers who discovered bottles of Guinness dated from 1864 in a shipwreck last summer have enlisted the help of expert microbiologists in a bid to recreate the exact recipe from the time. Sounds intriguing, but they put weird aul stuff in food and drinks in the Victorian era, so we bet the secret ingredient will be something like opium or cocaine.

On Tour. The Sam Maguire Cup (the trophy Mayo won a couple of weekends ago) will not be lying in some cabinet gathering dust, oh no. A plan is being put in action for Sam to visit every single school in County Mayo over the coming months. After that, there are plans to get Sam a passport and head to America, with Chicago and New York cited as possible destinations. After 75 years of waiting, we’d say the Mayo County Board is allowed to milk the moment.

Big Trip. So, the news broke this week that President Donald Trump (reportedly) will be making a two-day visit to Ireland in September. POTUS will visit Dublin, then swing by County Clare for the Irish Open, which will be held at his Doonbeg course. We also note that it seems to be obligatory for every President to have a photo op drinking a pint of Guinness, but this one is famously teetotal. What do you reckon? A pint of Guinness 0-0? Or, as with many other things, will this President break with convention?

The Craic Recommends….a bit of diddly-dee. Yeah, we’ve really got a dose of the Fleadh bug this week. It’s just been, well, joyous. There are numerous musicians playing across the festival, but we thought one of the best for you to get a flavor of the music comes from the Blackwater Céilí Band. They are some operators, experts at getting the aul feet tapping. You simply can’t beat a bit of trad.

The Irish Influence

We spat out half our pint of stout laughing when we came across an Irish News feature based on Belfast’s grumpiest pub owner, John Bittles. Señor Bittles is, indeed, famously cantankerous, even giving your humble narrator a swift kick up the arse one evening many moons ago (it was deserved). But the newspaper spread was all about him having a smile on his face due to the brisk trade brought by the Fleadh – the busiest ever period in the pub’s history. Anyway, this week’s influence is not John himself, but a shoutout to all the grumpy aul publicans across our wee island. You know the type – no-nonsense, angry folk who act like they don’t want any customers and who take shite from absolutely nobody. Irish hospitality wouldn’t be the same without you, so never change, lads.

Cúpla Focal

Lúnasa {Loon-ih-sah} – August. It’s August, or the time of the harvest (the festival of Lughnasadh). RTÉ has a lovely wee piece on all the harvest rituals, explaining everything from Gleaning Sunday to the cutting of the Last Sheaf. 

Blast from the Past

The first kind-of-somewhat-official Fleadh Cheoil was held back in 1951 in Mullingar, and it has, of course, ballooned into this massive thing since that time. But at this year’s event in Belfast, they have unveiled a plaque for a man whose work “is the basis for sessions and Fleadhanna Ceoil, traditional music festivals, the world over”. That man is James O’Neill, who, along with Francis O’Neill, worked to preserve the legacy of Irish music by transcribing tunes from fellow Irish immigrants in Chicago. The two lads were dogged in archiving music that would have been lost forever. James was a Chicago cop in the late 19th century, so we obviously don’t have video, but we thought it would be appropriate to share what we think is one of the best videos of this year’s Fleadh, provided by the Northern Ireland Traveller (a good’un to follow on YouTube, btw).

And One Last Thing….

We’ve been building something we’re really excited about: a whole new way to chat on Shift. But because this is Shift, we didn’t want to build just another WhatsApp or Facebook clone. We think of chat as an Irish pub. The Snug is where you chat privately with your friends, The Main Bar is where the wider community gathers for a bit of Craic, discovers new Ceol, or talks all things GAA in their County chat. Hubs are the back room, where festivals, clubs and organizations host their own communities, and soon IRL will help you discover people nearby and turn online conversations into real-world connections. We’re still putting the finishing touches on a few features, but this is another step toward our mission of using technology to strengthen community and get people together, not keep them scrolling.