Crowds have fun in the sun as Mela brings colour to Botanic Gardens
THOUSANDS of people descended on a Belfast park yesterday for Northern Ireland’s biggest annual celebration of cultural diversity.
The 13th Belfast Mela opened at the city’s Botanic Gardens and featured a colourful parade of dancers, music, a Chinese dragon and a giant replica elephant.
Belfast Lord Mayor John Finucane helped officially open the event, which the Sinn Fein representative praised as a “fantastic celebration of our cultural and artistic diversity”.
One of the highlights of the event, organised by ArtsEkta, was the parade led by the Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band, however the entertainment also included a programme of performances on the main stage as well as food, crafts and art. Nisha Tandon, executive director ArtsEkta, said the festival “continues to go from strength to strength”.
“The success of Mela is rooted in a desire by all communities across Belfast and beyond to be part of something that represents their own cultural identity,” she said.
“The Mela represents Belfast as the vibrant, enriched, inter-cultural and ambitious city it is growing to become.”
While it was sunshine and smiles yesterday, the Met Office says make the most of the fine weather while you can because — as ever — rain is on the way.
The blistering weekend weather will last until tonight, forecasters say, but there will be rain in the air tomorrow.
After a few weeks of changeable weather the bank holiday weekend was warm and sunny for the Mela, as Northern Ireland benefited from a band of warm air drawn across the UK from Europe.
Temperatures in Northern Ireland soared to 24C at the weekend, but will not reach those heights today.
Forecasters expect a maximum temperature of 22C.
Tomorrow will see things turn cooler.
It is expected to be cloudy with rain at times until Thursday, when there will be some sunshine and the odd shower.
For those heading south to the Republic, Met Eireann said most of the island will remain dry today, but as evening falls it is expected that there will be outbreaks of rain and drizzle along the Atlantic seaboard.
In the UK people enjoyed the hottest ever August bank holiday weekend.
The previous record high was broken as 31.6C (88.9F) was recorded at Heathrow at around 1pm yesterday, the Met Office said.
And later the Met Office said that provisionally it looked as though the highest temperature recorded on Sunday was 33.3C (92F), again at Heathrow.