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music · Saturday 1 August 2026 · 8:00pm 
Flook - Belfast TradFest Closing Concert
At Mandela Hall · Elmwood Avenue, Belfast, Co. Antrim
At Mandela Hall · Elmwood Avenue, Belfast, Co. Antrim
Flook are one of those bands that remind you what traditional music sounds like when it is played without a ceiling. Formed in 1995, the group - Brian Finnegan and Sarah Allen on flutes and whistles, Ed Boyd on guitar and John Joe Kelly on bodhrán - spent three decades reshaping what Irish and British folk can do together. This concert at Mandela Hall on Saturday 1 August closes out Belfast TradFest 2026, the festival’s eighth edition, and Belfast TradFest themselves bill it as the biggest Belfast show in the band’s 30-year history. If you have been to a Flook gig before, that will mean something. If you have not, this is the right night to start.
Doors open at 6:30pm for a standing show at Mandela Hall, a mid-size room in the Queen’s Quarter that rewards its audience with excellent acoustics and sight lines from almost anywhere on the floor. Support comes from An Chéad Ghlúin Eile - “The Next Generation” - sean-nós singing sisters Étáin and Máire Ní Churraoin from County Meath, granddaughters of the legendary singer Darach Ó Catháin. Their unaccompanied Irish-language singing makes a natural counterpoint to Flook’s instrumental power, and it sets the room up properly for what follows.
Flook’s live sets tend to build: Finnegan’s flute technique is extraordinary up close, Kelly’s bodhrán drives the tempo with the kind of physicality that carries right to the back wall, and the interplay between Allen and Boyd gives the arrangements a layered quality that recordings do not fully capture. Expect the room to be on its feet well before the end. Note that this is a strictly 18+ event.
Mandela Hall sits on Elmwood Avenue in Belfast’s Queen’s Quarter, a short walk from the main Queen’s University campus. From Belfast city centre it is about 15 minutes on foot or a quick ride on one of several Metro bus routes that run along Malone Road and Stranmillis Road. The Europa Bus Centre and Great Victoria Street railway station are both under two kilometres away, making the venue easy to reach from anywhere in Northern Ireland by public transport.
If you are driving from the south, the M1 brings you into central Belfast in good time from Dublin - allow around two hours. Street parking in the residential streets around Queen’s can be found in the evenings, though the area is busy on weekends. The Botanic Avenue car parks are the safer bet.
The Queen’s Quarter rewards a longer visit - the Ulster Museum, the Botanic Gardens and the Cathedral Quarter are all easily combined into a day around the concert. There is more to see in Belfast and across Co. Antrim.
Heading to Mandela Hall in Belfast? Antrim has plenty more to see. Read the Belfast area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.