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Picture This to open Live at the Marquee Cork's 20th run

Picture This to open Live at the Marquee Cork's 20th run

RTÉ News​03-06-2025
Picture This will kick off Live at the Marquee Cork 2025, which marks the 20th anniversary of the summer music festival.
The rock band will open the festival when they take to the stage on Wednesday, 25 June.
The Coronas, Christy Moore, The Waterboys, Olly Murs, Kingfishr, Amble, The Mary Wallopers and Cian Ducrot are among the musical acts also set to perform this year.
Comedians Dara Ó Briain, Tommy Tiernan and Michael McIntyre and former footballer Roy Keane in conversation with Roddy Doyle are also on this year's billing.
The first artist to ever play Live at the Marquee was the legendary Brian Wilson at the festival's inception in 2005, in which the Marquee hosted 12 shows.
Since then, over 1,750,000 people have attended gigs at the annual festival.
This year, Live at the Marquee Cork will host a record-breaking 28 shows.
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'More people win the lottery than achieve what's happened to us' — Kingfishr, the student band selling out the 3Arena
'More people win the lottery than achieve what's happened to us' — Kingfishr, the student band selling out the 3Arena

Irish Examiner

time20 hours ago

  • Irish Examiner

'More people win the lottery than achieve what's happened to us' — Kingfishr, the student band selling out the 3Arena

When laid out on the page, the lyrics of Kingfishr have the look and feel of mid-century Irish poetry — subdued, conversational, and peppered with an energy that borders on despondency. However, when paired with the still, heavy baritone of lead singer Eddie Keogh, and the striking musicality of bass player Eoghan 'McGoo' McGrath, and banjo player Eoin 'Fitz' Fitzgibbon, the alchemy changes to reveal a stirring, emotional urgency, one not dissimilar to hope. When Kingfishr play, they emote something that is both entirely unaffected and yet drenched with feeling. Like the writing of the band's stylistic forebears — The Dubliners, The Cranberries, The Frames — the music of Kingfishr is imbued with a yearning for a long-vanished, almost parochial way of life: one centred around the beauty, peace and danger of youth, and the long, hazy days of wondering where life will take you next. Next month, Fitzgibbon (27), McGrath (26) and Keogh (27) will release their debut album, Halcyon, along with a smattering of tour dates across Europe and the US, many of which are already sold out. As we sit in Dublin's The Gibson Hotel, and look across to the 3Arena, they can't quite believe that this venue is one of them. 'Ticket sales sometimes feel not real, social media isn't real, but walking into that space, knowing you're going to sell it out for two nights… That is real,' Keogh says. 'And crazy,' Fitzgibbon laughs. 'It never gets normal, and to be honest, I don't think I want it to,' McGrath smiles. The trio met in the early twenty-twenties — some say 2021, others 2022 — while studying Hardware Engineering at the University of Limerick. Between long days in student accommodation during the hangover of the pandemic, they punctuated college work with PlayStation and songwriting, picking up where Keogh's teenage hobby left off. Fitzgibbon, an East Cork hurler with thick eyebrows and a bashful smile, soon joined him in creating music, only to remember a classmate with a penchant for strings. 'McGoo comes from a musical dynasty,' Keogh says. 'There's a room dedicated to silverware in their house. But yeah, we asked him to get involved to see what a banjo would sound like with what we'd written — and it all kind of started from there.' Kingfishr, named for the birds who reside near the river behind Keogh's house, began playing at house parties to hone their craft and spread their name. It was a natural extension of their previous lives, picking up guitars at sessions and singing until daylight broke. The first 50 gigs, mainly pubs around Limerick, were 'rubbish,' but they persisted. As friends began to request their music at parties over celebrated covers, the three men began to consider the will-they-won't-they pull of the music industry. (Their track Shot In The Dark tracks this leap of faith from a much steadier path to a much more creative one.) That they've managed to break through the noise amidst an island of songwriters is not lost on them. 'I just knew that if we didn't do this now, we never would,' Keogh says, catching my eyes. 'I wanted to be able to go to bed every night and know that we'd tried. And like… More people win the lottery than achieve what's happened to us. This doesn't just happen.' Kingfishr: 'I wanted to be able to go to bed every night and know that we'd tried. And like… More people win the lottery than achieve what's happened to us. This doesn't just happen.' Indeed, since their debut on the Irish music scene less than three years ago, Kingfishr have racked up more than 70 million streams, sold 50,000+ tickets, played support slots for the likes of Dermot Kennedy and Bruce Springsteen, and are key players in the Irish revival alongside acts like The Mary Wallopers, Amble, KNEECAP, and John Francis Flynn. According to Cork and Limerick locals, their impromptu gigs have amassed what publicans have come to label as 'Beatlemania'. In person, the band's members are boyish, smiling and unassuming. They regularly discuss how it's not in their nature to be self-promoting, something that brushes against the norms of today's music industry, and prefer to discuss the likes of nicknames ('McGoo' was deemed so by McGrath's physics teacher, and somehow persisted), advertisement soundtracks (the 2005 Sony Bravia TV one with José Gonzales' Heartbeats, Hyundai's 2018 one with James Vincent McMorrow's cover of Higher Love) and perfect movies (' Shrek 2 is a rare example of a sequel better than the original'). They do align on one serious topic, though: spirituality. 'I spent an awful lot of my teens feeling that there was no point to anything, that we were just bones and flesh, and you could just drink yourself off a cliff,' Keogh says. 'But I've had a couple of experiences now where I start to consider that there's something out there worth believing in. And I think that's partially what a lot of music is about.' 'I certainly believe in something,' Fitzgibbon shares. 'I grew up in a religious family,' McGrath says. 'And I can't help but feel today that something's lost. You can explain away an awful lot, and we are engineers, so we know that more than most, but sometimes…' Keogh interjects. 'There's a bit of magic in the air. And maybe you can explain that away as just like molecules and DNA. But I think if people were really honest with themselves… they would say that it's something we know very little about.' Certainly, Kingfishr have given young people something to believe in. As peers of theirs continue to emigrate, their music brings those who have left home in a way few anticipated. There's perhaps their most famous track, Killeagh, an ode to Fitzgibbon's hurling team, penned before an East County Final. ('They'd go raring and tearing and fighting for love / For the land they call Killeagh and the Lord up above'). Written in just 15 minutes, the now four-times Platinum single speaks to everything the band is about: storytelling, community and an appreciation for home. 'We have this crowd of 8-year-olds who stand behind the goals whenever we play in Killeagh now,' Fitzgibbon smiles. 'And now they scream the song whenever we score. I think it makes them proud of their place, and that's everything, because we want to give people an Ireland to be proud of.' In the end, the music of Kingfishr continues to soar because they tend to shine a light on a need few of us can put a name on. They, too, speak to a myriad; each listen allows one to find something slightly different from the time before. In that way, Fitzgibbon, McGrath and Keogh have become, unbeknownst to themselves, north stars for a generation, one that may have felt that Ireland wasn't for them, through no fault of their own. Indeed, one central theme permeates through the band's debut album: that we all live in the shadow of one another, and we must listen to find our way out. 'Certainly, the reason I fell in love with music is from, like, house parties, running after girls you hadn't a hope with, and then some song comes on and everyone goes bananas,' Keogh says. 'And you're just like, will things ever be this good again? If we can give that to someone, and they can come away from a night listening to our music with a core memory, that to me is everything.' 'I want us to take America,' Keogh says, finally, as we discuss the band's big dreams. 'I've never said that aloud before, and I'm aware it might sound stupid. But we've finished a tour there, with another coming up now. So we might have the chance to sink our claws in, and God, we're going to try.' * Kingfishr's debut album Halcyon will be released on August 22, 2025 * Tickets for their tour are available on

Town's residents in 'strong opposition' to 'controversial' Mise Eire festival
Town's residents in 'strong opposition' to 'controversial' Mise Eire festival

Irish Daily Mirror

timea day ago

  • Irish Daily Mirror

Town's residents in 'strong opposition' to 'controversial' Mise Eire festival

A number of residents and business owners in Castlebar are 'voicing strong opposition' to the 'controversial' Mise Éire festival slated for a hotel in the town this weekend - launching a petition to have the festival moved. Mise Éire Festival was initially set to take place on August 23 at the Mayflower Community Centre in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim, featuring 'live music, talks and workshops celebrating Irish culture, heritage and shared values'. One of the panel discussions is titled Echos of Éire, learning from Ireland's Past to Shape a Resilient Future from figures including far right writer John Waters, Brehon Academy founder Kevin Flanagan and others. But earlier in August, the Mayflower Community Centre in Drumshanbo informed the public that the event would not be taking place at the centre due to terms and conditions not being complied with'. The announcement followed an open letter signed by around 600 artists, musicians and arts workers including The Mary Wallopers, Chris O'Dowd, Fontaines D.C., Christy Moore, Frances Black, Stephen Rea and more being sent to the community centre calling on them to cancel what they called the 'far right' festival. The Mayflower Community Centre in Leitrim (Image: Mayflower Community Centre/Facebook) In a subsequent interview with Shannonside News, one of the festival's organiser Stephen Kerr explained that the festival would still be going ahead in Mayo, just outside Castlebar. He said the 'music and culture' festival would see 'talks and music all day long in three different areas.' Now, a number of residents and business owners in Castlebar are 'voicing strong opposition' to the 'controversial' Mise Éire festival and have launched an online petition to have the festival pulled citing 'significant concerns for public safety'. At the time of writing the petition had amassed over 2,000 signatures. 'Castlebar is a proud, welcoming town, especially at the height of our tourist season,' said one local concerned resident. 'An event shrouded in secrecy, which was already rejected by another community, is not welcome here. We are deeply concerned about the potential for disruption and the damage this could do to our reputation as a safe and inclusive place for families, visitors, and investors.' Christy Moore (Image: Getty Images) In an open letter, the coalition of residents and business owners wrote: 'An event shrouded in secrecy, which was already rejected by another community, is not welcome here. We are deeply concerned about the potential for disruption and the damage this could do to our reputation as a safe and inclusive place for families, visitors, and investors.' 'Further questions remain regarding an 'after-party' planned for an undisclosed rural location near the town. 'It is unclear if organisers have secured the necessary permits or put adequate safety and logistical plans in place, adding to the community's sense of unease. 'Concerned residents are urging local authorities and elected officials to address the lack of transparency and ensure all public safety, licensing, and planning regulations are strictly enforced.' Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.

Controversial Mise Éire Festival set to go ahead in Mayo despite calls for cancellation
Controversial Mise Éire Festival set to go ahead in Mayo despite calls for cancellation

Irish Independent

time2 days ago

  • Irish Independent

Controversial Mise Éire Festival set to go ahead in Mayo despite calls for cancellation

Hundreds of artists, including Christy Moore and Kneecap, called for the gathering to be cancelled when it was originally scheduled for the Mayflower Community Centre in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim. After the venue cancelled its hosting of the festival, Mise Éire organiser Stephen Kerr announced that the festival would go ahead in Mayo. United Against Racism Mayo have alleged a hotel in Castlebar will be hosting the event and have urged staff to boycott the event to prevent it from proceeding. The group point out that many of the hotel workers are migrants. The Irish Independent has contacted the hotel for comment. Mise Éire have said that 750 tickets have been sold online for the festival and that it is taking place at 'a secret location outside Castlebar' on Saturday, August 23. A petition calling for the cancellation for the festival claims that up to 750 people are expected to travel to Castlebar for the event. The petition, which has received over 1,700 verified signatures, claims that some residents have 'expressed concerns about how the event might affect Castlebar's proud reputation as a welcoming place for tourists, business investors, shoppers and those who call it home'. Mise Éire have described the festival as 'a family friendly celebration of our beautiful Ireland focusing on its rich cultural tapestry' featuring live music, talks, workshops and Irish language classes.'

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