Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann is credited with saving traditional music in Ireland. It held its first Fleagh Cheoil - an annual festival of Irish traditional music, song and dance - in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath over the Whit weekend in May in 1951. The first Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann attracted only a few hundred people, but it quickly grew into a huge National festival attracting thousands of traditional musicians, singers and dancers from all over Ireland and across the globe. Mullingar once again had the honour of hosting the Fleagh Cheoil in 1963, and in 2020 the Fleagh Cheoil will finally make its way home to Mullingar.
