Ceilidh Culture

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Ceilidh Culture is an annual festival in Edinburgh, Scotland that brings together folk music, singing, dancing and storytelling. It runs for about a month around Easter, with events across the city.

The festival in its current form began in 2003, but Edinburgh has a long history of ceilidh and folk celebrations. In 1951, Hamish Henderson helped start the People’s Festival, funded by groups like the British Council, the Communist Party and the Scottish TUC. It was revived in 2002 by Colin Fox of the Scottish Socialist Party and featured performances such as Ewan MacColl’s Uranium 235 and Gaelic singing.

In those early years the festival changed a lot. It ran for three weeks in 1952, but funding dried up and the programme was reduced. The 1954 People’s Festival was the last. In 1964 Edinburgh hosted a Folk Festival with acts like The Corries and The Dubliners. From 1979 to 1999 there was an annual Edinburgh Folk Festival with major Celtic bands, but it ended because of money problems.

In 2003 Ceilidh Culture was launched as a new, dedicated ceilidh festival in Edinburgh.