‘We have to release the dead hand of the past’: How Ireland created the world’s best alternative music scene | music

HeyOn a hot Saturday afternoon at Glastonbury, while many are suffering from a hangover midway through, Dublin garage quartet Sprints are pumping up a jubilant pit with a charged Descartes tune, tri-colored Irish flags swaying above them. As summer approaches, at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, new songs from Galway indie band New Dad wow the audience. Travi, the Nigerian-born, Tallaght-raised rapper, makes a mixtape with his Dublin music, the follow-up to the first Irish rap album to top the Irish charts. Efé transcends Dublin bedroom pop to be signed by US label Fader, and later… With Jools Holland, George Houston performs the haunting Lilith – a tribute to political protest singers everywhere – in his distinctive Donegal accent.

From Melbourne to Mexico City, partygoers continue to scream to the tune of that opening loop over the strings of Fontaines DC’s Starburster, and CMAT’s ubiquitous “Wake macarena” dance to her hit Take a Sexy Picture of Me is being played at festivals and on TikTok. You may have heard of Kneecap too.

Ireland has always had a fair number of punk, raves and big indie acts, be it Cranberry, Ash or Bicep, but it has never had an alternative music scene quite as strong or diverse as today: Lankum, Gilla Band, Pillow Queens, For That I Love, John Francis Flynn and Chalk are some other famous names, along with a thriving underground rap scene. It’s now so successful that it’s redefining what “Irish music” is, opening doors to musicians who were once outside the country’s cultural conversation.

“It was an Irish renaissance,” says Carla Chubb, singer and guitarist for the Sprints. The group is now in the middle of a UK tour, with shows in the US next year. They are the first Irish band signed to the American independent label Sub Pop. She cites Fontaines DC and CMAT as a “blueprint” for making it global. “As a Dublin band, you hope one day to play Vicar Street,” which is a medium-sized venue. “Now we have the drive to expand.” Music is no longer an “unpaid internship,” she says.

Uniting today’s works is a spirit of rebellion, quick wit and vulnerable lyricism, with recurring themes of solidarity and marginalisation, crafted by young people still emerging from the Troubles and the legacy of the Celtic Tiger (the Irish property boom, the 2008 crash and subsequent recession). The Sprints lit up a transgender rights banner during their Glasto set, while Mary Wallopers’ Dundalk show at Portsmouth’s Victorious Festival was cut short after they expressed their support for Palestine. Irish Artists for Palestine recently facilitated an Irish tour for the Palestinian choir Daughters of Jerusalem. “This understanding of oppression and colonialism that we have is generational,” he says. Dan Huff from Dublin Five Piece Gurriers.

Chubb says the Sprints’ second album, released in September, was “inspired by the disparity between pursuing our dreams and playing music full-time, faced with the homeless crisis in Ireland, the war in Gaza, and the cost of living.” “They are issues across Europe, so on the international stage, we are highlighting a common struggle.”

“The songs are written about Ireland, but I wanted to write them with a global understanding,” says Huff. His band Gurriers released their debut album Come and See in 2024, supporting Fontaines DC and getting a single on EA Sports FC 26. The band is disturbed by the rise of the far-right in Ireland and beyond, and their spitting protest song Approachable was written in the voice of an online right-wing leader; Dipping Out is about Irish immigration, but it expands, says Huff, “like an Adam Curtis documentary, criticizing the zeitgeist.

“People feel isolated and frustrated by those in power,” Hof adds. “It’s not just an Irish situation. I try to avoid any Irish terms in my lyrics.”

“The world is pretty much on fire… in the face of this rise in AI-generated music, people want something real and grounded,” says Nikki McRae, music officer at Belfast City Council. “And that’s something Ireland does very well.” “Irish songwriters have always championed authenticity, and audiences crave that more than ever.”

“I“Wealth has become something people covet,” agrees Julie Dawson of NewDad, “which is crazy, because not that long ago it was something people despised.” For many years, British listeners turned mostly to mainstream acts (Westlife, U2, the Corrs, B*Witched) or traditional folk. Meanwhile, radio in Ireland has long been dominated by British and American acts, or restricted to local acts such as Snow Patrol and Hozier, with most Irish artists considered specialists. “About nine years ago, a local artist was turned down for a track on the radio because they had already played an Irish track that week,” says McRae. “What distinguishes Irish musicians is that they redouble their efforts in the face of such challenges.”

Traditional metal group Scratch’s Cathal McKenna recalls the 2011 Oxegen Festival, which took place not far from Dublin and hosted almost exclusively international headliners. “We took our influences from them… and now, seeing Irish festivals full of Irish acts is a powerful thing,” says McKenna, from All Together Now to Electric Picnic. “People have their own stories, languages ​​and cities that are represented by amazing artists. We are naturally confident now in a way we were not then.”

In addition to the music itself, there are some obvious forces behind this shift. A generation of Gen Z and millennial artists understand what it means to come of age through recession, austerity and the end of the Troubles. The music pulses with the sense of promises made and withdrawn: CMAT pierces the economic bubble and its devastating consequences on her song Euro-Country, symbolized by her dancing around her hometown’s soulless shopping mall in the video. But there is also a challenging call to action. “I know it would be better if we went after him,” she sings.

In Northern Ireland, the song PTS.DUP by noise punk band Enola Gay dealt with a sectarian attack on guitarist Joe McVie that left him with a fractured skull. Meanwhile, in their charming Stiff Little Fingers-influenced song, “I Think You Should Leave,” quirky punk band Problem Patterns still find hope in building community in Belfast: “Everything always comes back to trouble,” the song says, “We gotta release the dead hand of the past.”

“I think artists from Northern Ireland are thriving now because we all grew up with generational trauma and that makes for some excellent art,” says band member Beth Crooks. “The song is about how much we love living here, despite the exodus we see from our peers. If the right people stay and push for change, it’s bound to happen.”

James Robinson, founder of Craic magazine in Belfast, says the renaissance is partly down to local media such as Thin Air, Yeo, Niall9 and District, which documented these scenes before they were picked up by the British or international press, along with conferences such as Output and AVA Festival, all of which “encourage more acts to get started and keep the momentum going”. He adds that the British media’s recent embrace of politically outspoken Irish artists indicates a “somewhat British fragility” in terms of the overlookedness of this scene in previous generations. A step beyond the shamrock and Guinness fascination with Irish culture to really listen to Irish voices.

Many people I speak to say that another major reason for such a thriving scene is Ireland’s growing cultural diversity. “Artists are crying out loud against attempts to narrow the perception of what is Irish,” says McRae, as racist and xenophobic unrest has swept the country in recent months.

Belfast-based rapper Impey has brought the AVA Dance Music Festival to life for the first time ever. After competing against Beyoncé and The Weeknd at the 2025 Grammy Awards, another Belfast boy, Jordan Adetunji, continues to mix fast rap with trap music, post-punk guitars and African dance. Tallaght-born Spider, now a London-based producer, grew up on 90s riot acts like Bikini Kill and Veruca Salt. Like McKenna, she had few Irish references (except cranberries, she says), and even now, “the scene can be very white and male-dominated,” she says. “But it’s a really exciting place. We’re seeing more Irish people of colour, women and gay people, and the music is getting better.”

Mongola is the co-founder of the five-year-old Chamomile Club group and label in Dublin. Their slogan is BKDI: Black Kids Do It. “We’ve created an ecosystem,” Mongola says. “We are musicians but we are also videographers, graphic designers, producers and designers.” Chamomile Moio crossed paths with 2024 single Moments, topping the Viral 50 on Spotify. “The Black Irish experience is very unique,” ​​Mongola adds. “We don’t have a blueprint, so we follow our intuition — and that resonates.”

Ballymun-founded rap group Bricknasty blend hip-hop, neo-soul, rave and garage with Gaelic-language lyrics – their single Is é a Locht a Laghad is a stark track about heritage and hardship. Frontman Fat Boy says he was “eating curry paste rolls because I couldn’t afford chicken” – until they supported Coldplay at Dublin’s Croke Park as a backing band for Irish singer Aby Coulibaly, and recently put together their mixtape Black’s Law. They are now preparing for their first US headline tour in February. “You get a false sense that you’re playing in Ireland, because the crowds are so deadly [good]“Sometimes what you need is to become a polygon,” says Fatboy. That’s how you learn.” However, they captured a lot of audiences: “Seeing people elsewhere respond because they’ve been through similar things is magical.”

Achievements like theirs are far from a given, and artists from bigger cities tend to have more opportunities, but arts centers like Duncairn in Belfast encourage cross-border collaboration, creating fertile ground for agents and brands to explore.

Another huge boost came in October, when the Irish government announced that a pilot basic income scheme for artists would become permanent. Public support was strong, and an independent study by Alma Economics found that it improved recipients’ creative productivity and mental well-being. With artists receiving €325 (£286) per week, the pilot scheme costs €25 million per year, a relatively small investment to keep the entire arts scene thriving. “The big challenge facing young artists now is the cost of living, but the thriving scene breeds confidence,” says Daniel “Lango” Lang of The Scratch that high unemployment rates among young people once drove them to music.

Not only is this confidence sparking this new generation of action, it is changing the way Irish people think about themselves. “We as a people are so neglectful of ourselves,” says NewDad’s Dawson. “We are sincerely grateful – amazed even – that people are showing up for us. I never would have thought that a band made up of a group of teenagers in Galway would one day stand on a big stage in Japan.”

Everyone I talk to has someone else to hype up, whether it’s dreamy pop or Cure backing band Just Mustard, folk group Madra Salach, artist Saoirse Miller or alternative rapper Khakikid. “We’re very proud of ourselves,” Dawson says. “Which is a hard thing to say as an Irish person.”