Zip back to May 2000 and the inaugural Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is welcomed not with high-fives and hosannas, but barely suppressed, back of the hand, hilarity. ‘Cathedral Quarter’? What – other than a tin-eared PR conceit – was that? Surely they couldn’t mean that warren of ink-dark streets around St. Anne’s?

Less a location than an aspiration – in hindsight, Sean Kelly and his team’s first festival was as much about imaging an area as reflecting one. Thirteen years on, however, and the initial vision of the place (allied with a bit of canny planning) seems to have willed itself into being. With art galleries, boutique hotels, music centres, shops and the award-winning MAC, the area has become a real cultural magnet. So, job done? Spectacularly so.
“Well, to borrow a phrase from Bertie Ahern, you could say, ‘A lot done, a lot more to do’,” Sean laughs. “I’ve always loved the area, its history of radicalism, anarchism, United Irishmen, punk, club culture, the gay and lesbian subculture. Sometimes you’re in a bar these days and you can’t move for bearded hipsters with MacBooks and you think, ‘I miss the old days’. It’s a bit like when your favourite unknown band becomes popular. Small gripes aside, the area has come on hugely in terms of infrastructure for the arts. The three things I value most are the Cathedral Festival, the Black Box and Culture Night. But there’s much else to celebrate too.”
Back in those first few years, half the fun of CQAF was the inventive way it got around the chronic lack of conventional venues within its manor. With the MAC and The Black Box now open, that isn’t as big an issue these days. But while this has undoubtedly made the festival’s job a lot easier, has it come at the expense of its unique character?
“In some ways necessity was the mother of invention and we had to be very creative about the use of space in the early days,” says Sean. “It’s less of an issue now. However, that legacy is still there. This year we’ll be putting Roy Walker in Crumlin Road Jail, and a mobile cinema in Writer’s Square. There are lots of pop-up visual art spaces, folk on a boat and
so on.”
There has always been a political subtext to the best festival programmes. Given the recent flag disturbances – and the subsequent ‘Take Back The City/Backin’ Belfast’ campaign – does this year’s series of events have a particular significance?
“We’re proud of our association with Trade Unions and Mayday and our values are definitely on the side of social progress,” Sean explains. “Sometimes, though, the subtext is quite subconscious and it’s not until later that I’ve realised it. I remember the year of the ‘Shock & Awe’ campaign against Iraq (2003), we had Billy Bragg, Patti Smith, Mark Thomas, Benjamin Zephaniah and so on – all vehemently anti-war and yet I only noticed it later.
“The flag thing is not a preoccupation but it could be an issue if public disorder flares up and stops people coming out of their houses. Having said that we held our Out To Lunch festival in January this year at the height of the protests and numbers were greater than ever.”

The CQAF runs from May 2 – 12. See cqaf.com