‘Where a lot of the events are taking place, there’s rough sleepers who call the streets their home’More than 800,000 people are expected to visit the festival this week. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Fri Aug 07 2026 - 06:00 • 5 MIN READ“It’s the best I’ve eaten in weeks, thank you very much,” a homeless man shouts to staff after devouring a full Irish breakfast at The People’s Kitchen in north Belfast.Servers tell him to enjoy his day as he leaves the city’s only drop-in food centre for rough sleepers.It’s Wednesday morning and the city is preparing to host the fourth day of Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann 2026.Cups of freshly squeezed orange juice line the counter of the spotless diningroom where Amy, a former civil servant who has been homeless for three years, waits to speak to a housing officer. Bandages cover her feet, swollen with ulcers.“I would starve if it wasn’t for here,” she says.The charity kitchen is located in a former Ulster Bank – two vaults house overflowing food and clothing donations – on the busy Antrim Road.It is a short distance from the city centre and just outside the boundary of the temporarily pedestrianised fleadh zone. More than 800,000 people are expected to visit the festival this week.People’s Kitchen founder Paul McCusker welcomes the event as an opportunity to showcase the city, “especially on the back of the racist riots” in June. But he is worried about the “displacement” of vulnerable people.People's Kitchen founder Paul McCusker: 'What we’re finding ... is that people who are homeless are being pushed out around the peripheries of the city.' Photograph: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press