Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2024

One of the island’s most beloved and long-running festivals is back for 11 days of live music, comedy, film, literature, visual art and more! This year’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival takes place from Thursday 2nd May to Sunday 12th May, and features over 100 acts – big, small and everything in between – in dozens of venues across Belfast’s historic cultural quarter and beyond.

The festival marquee at Custom House Square will feature headlining performances from Nadine Shah, Hollie McNish, Ibibio Sound Machine, stone-cold soul legend P.P. Arnold (plus guest Bronagh Gallagher), teenage blues sensation Muireann Bradley, the definitive Neil Young tribute act Harvest, the main magical genius of  a comedian Jerry Sadowitz, Baxter Dury, Ireland’s most popular author Marian Keyes, The Dodge Brothers (featuring one Mark Kermode on double bass), Mick Flannery and festival-favourite Janey Godley returns to Belfast after beating cancer, armed with a new documentary film (featuring CQAF) and a lacerating stand-up comedy set.

Elsewhere, in one of the strongest music programmes this year, the line-up includes Robert Finley, Snapped Ankles, Conchúr White, TVAM, Jimmie Rhodes, Liu (unplugged), C Duncan, Oisin Leech, Tom Robinson, Lemoncello, Zoe Conway and John McIntyre, Kathering Priddy, Jane Weaver, The Handsome Family and DJ sets from Mr Scruff, Lack of Afro, Justin Robertson and DJ Format.

The festival is thrilled to present the remarkable Joel Harkin as this year’s Artist in Residence. Joel is a singer of songs and a spinner of yarns from County Donegal. His 2020 album Never Happy was shortlisted for the NI Music Prize and is one of the standout Irish releases in recent years.

There’s books and talks aplenty from multiple-award-winning Irish author Sinéad Gleeson, Sara Pascoe will be talking about her new novel Weirdo and Annie McManus will hold a conversation about a life of music, books and broadcasting. CQAF is thrilled to welcome the very legendary Phil Manzanera (of Roxy Music amongst many others) with his acclaimed new memoir Revólución to Roxy. The auteur’s Auteur Luke Haines is back with a new tome – the thrillingly titled Freaks Out! Weirdos, Misfits, Deviants – The Rise and Fall of Righteous Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Daniel Rachel will be in conversation about his new book on the 2 Tone Records Story – Too Much Too Young.

The CQAF film programme includes a special 50^th anniversary screening of everyone’s favourite horror comedy – Young Frankenstein will take place in the gothic surrounds of St Patrick’s Church. The Northern Irish premiere of Birdsong – the incredible account of ornithologist Sean Ronayne’s attempt to record the song of every single bird in Ireland – that’s Ronayne’s attempt to record the song of every single bird in Ireland – almost 200 birds! CQAF will also be presenting the Irish premiere of Big Banana Feet – the great Billy Connolly documentary about his Irish tour in 1975 (which culminated in a performance in the old ABC cinema in Belfast) – long-thought lost but now lovingly restored in 4k.

The enigmatic genius that is Daniel Kitson will be making a live rare foray, performing a brand-new show Collaborator: A Work in Progress, where the audience are part of the script.

And there’s theatre from Big Telly with ‘The Worst Café in the World’ and Tinderbox Theatre Co’s production of ‘I’ve Always Liked the Name Marcus’. Jack Doherty will bring his intimate Edinburgh smash ‘David Bowie and Me’. Hildegard Ryan and Eva O’Connor – the people that brought the award-winning ‘Mustard’ to life at CQAF last year – return with the equally visceral ‘Chicken’, and ‘acclaimed clown’ and emerging idiot Frankie Thompson will be welcomed with CAttS – one of the Guardian’s top five shows of last year. Will Govan will also be performing his celebrated essay on the life of Oscar Wilde, titled ‘Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes’.

The CQAF visual arts programme includes “mother tongue” at The Mac, which is a who’s who of great local artists, new work from Éabha Campbell at Catalyst Arts, featuring a synthesis of traditional oil painting and sound and video installation, the two-site exhibition ‘Smoke’ from international artists and guerrilla practitioners Shiro Masayamas and Leopold Kessler, and ‘Bua an Chultúir/Victory of Culture’, an exhibition of sculpture from Farhad O’Neill.

Hit the North Street Art Festival returns to enliven the spaces and places between festival venues and, wile you’re on your feet, why not join one of our many walking tours – from Black Belfast to the Clifton St Cemetery Tour.

Festival director, Sean Kelly, said: “We always try and make increasingly little go a long way, and this year I hope we’ve achieved that in spades. I think there’s an abundance and diversity of local and international talent. I hate the old cliché ‘something for everyone’, but sometimes it just happens to be true! Come and join us in May and find out for yourself!”