This August, something happens in Belfast that has never happened before. From 2–9 August 2026, the city hosts Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann — the biggest celebration of traditional Irish music anywhere in the world — for the first time in its history. The city centre closes to traffic, hundreds of thousands of people arrive on foot, and for eight days the streets belong to the music.
Our shop sits at 4 Callender Street, right inside the pedestrianised zone. We'll be able to hear it through the door. And it felt wrong to let a week like that pass and have nothing to show for it — nothing made here, nothing that says you were in Belfast when the Fleadh finally came.
Why we're printing it by hand
Anyone can order a box of souvenirs. We'd rather make something. So for Fleadh week we're moving a print bench onto the shop floor and screen printing a limited run of original designs, live, all week, in front of anyone who wants to watch.
If you've never seen screen printing done by hand, it's a small piece of theatre. Ink is pulled across a mesh screen with a squeegee — one firm, even stroke — and where the stencil allows, it passes through onto the fabric or cover below. Then the screen peels back and there it is: a print that exists because someone stood there and made it. Every pull is very slightly its own. That's the point.
It's also the honest version of what this city is being celebrated for. Belfast is the island's only UNESCO City of Music, and the Fleadh is as much about craft — hands that learned to do a thing well — as it is about tunes. A hand-pulled print belongs to that same family.
Fresh off the press: the Béal Feirste design, hand-pulled onto a black Leuchtturm1917 hardcover.
What we're printing
We've kept it to original designs of our own — celebrating the music, the making and the city:
- The cotton tote bag — £10 — three designs (Béal Feirste, the Harland & Wolff cranes, the Belfast cityscape) on black or natural cotton, made to be carried through a festival week and for years after it. Pre-order now.
- Your Leuchtturm1917, printed — £5 — this is the one we're proudest of. Buy any Leuchtturm1917 notebook, bullet journal or 2027 planner (A5 or larger) and for £5 we'll screen-print the cover — while you wait in the shop, or before we dispatch your online order. A truly unique Leuchtturm, yours and nobody else's.
And a word on timing: the new 2027 planners have just landed. Buy one during Fleadh week, add the £5 print, and you'll carry Belfast's first Fleadh through every week of next year.
Everything is printed during Fleadh week only. When the Fleadh ends, so does the printing — that's what makes it a keepsake rather than stock.
Come and watch
Pre-orders are open now on our Fleadh 2026 page, and everything is available in-store while stocks last. But honestly? The best way to get one is to come in. Watch the squeegee pull, pick the piece you want, and walk back out into the music with something printed that same day, in this city, in the week it made history.
4 Callender Street. Right in the heart of it. We'll see you there.
