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Fresh off supporting The Wolfe Tones at Thomond Park, Limerick, Scottish folk-punk-indiepop outfit Brògeal make their highly anticipated return to Dublin with a headline show at The Academy on October 30th, 2025!
Tickets from €24.00 (inc booking fee & venue facility fee) from Ticketmaster.ie on sale Friday July 18th @ 10am. Bookings subject to 12.5% service charge per ticket (max €10.50)
The rambunctious Celtic folk of The Pogues, the story-telling charm of The View, the lush pop
harmonies of Teenage Fanclub, the jangly delicacy of the Smiths, the yearning of a classic Oasis B-side and a Scottish brogue as defiant as the Proclaimers… Brògeal have it all – and make it their own. A bubbling cultural cauldron set to boiling point, the sound overflows with accordion, banjo, bouzouki, mandolin and perky penny whistle, where ancient folk tradition meets an indie Gen Z sensibility and laughs, sings and dances in the face of 21st century darkness. The death of the swaggering good-time band has been greatly exaggerated.
From small-town Falkirk in central Scotland the folk-punk-indie-pop five-piece have big ideas, with a reputation as one of the best live bands in Britain, their communal, sing-along, delirious anthems igniting mosh-pit madness throughout the UK, Ireland and beyond. Everybody loves them.
“The thing about our music is that it transcends all age groups,” notes vocalist/songwriter/guitarist Daniel Harkins. “You’ve got 14-year-old boys with their mums, they’re all going mental, you've got old punks, middle-aged women, young adults, old people, everybody's digging it, you know? There's something for everybody because you've got your folky influences, The Pogues, with this indie edge and pop sensibilities.”
Brògeal (pronounced Bro-gale) got here via the old-school, DIY route. Borne from a friendship on a bus – Daniel and fellow songwriter Aidan Callaghan (vocals, banjo) met on journeys to Celtic football games – they formed a typically ramshackle school punk band, Shiva,who were “shit”, but the passion remained. Traditional folk fans forever, loving The Dubliners nand The Pogues, ideas for a folk band evolved, soon joined by Sam MacMillan who taught himself to play his grandad’s accordion. When Covid struck in 2020, more self-taught musicianship filled the void, learning their folky craft on curious olde instruments, two metres apart, in Daniel’s back garden under a leaky Asda gazebo. Emerging from Covid, two new recruits joined – local studio engineer Euan Mundie (bass) and Luke Mortimer (drums) – and the distinctive Brògeal sound took shape: fearlessly merging traditionally raucous Celtic folk with deft, harmonious songcraft, pop nous and the indie noughties energy they grew up on.
“We never set out with a [musical] plan,” notes Daniel. “Whatever we bring to the band, no matter what genre, it always ends up sounding like a Brògeal song anyway.”
They made their first EP for themselves, ‘Dirt and Daydreams’ (2023) released on their own winningly titled CraicDen label, followed by an eponymous EP in 2024 on Is Right Records, leading to a signing with revered independent label Play It Again Sam (PIAS, home to Nick Cave, The Hives, Cameron Winter). For the last 18 months they’ve toured relentlessly, throughout the UK and Ireland, gathering ecstatic fans, have supported Paolo Nutini, The Mary Wallopers and The Lathums, found fans in both 6 Music’s Huw Stephen and Line of Duty actor Martin Compston, been eulogised in Rolling Stone, the Independent, Clash, The New Cue, So Young and Dork.
“We’ve always been kept busy and it just kind of got bigger and bigger at a really natural rate,” says Aidan. “It’s the stuff of dreams. You think, ‘Oh, that could never happen’, and we’re doing it!”
Their debut album, released this October, spectacularly fulfils the belief. Tuesday Paper Club showcases their limitless musical range, with lyrical themes of romance, heartache, booze, local nutters, nostalgia and loss, its artwork featuring a paper boy, Aidan’s wee brother Finn. The title is a withering, generational quip: Daniel once worked the day shift in Falkirk’s oldest pub, The Wheatsheaf (established 1779), “a total old man’s pub”, where most days three old fellers took up residency with the newspapers. “They wouldn’t talk to each other until they’d had about five pints,” says Daniel, and when talk did start, alongside the headlines, there would be disparaging remarks on the apparently “stupid” young. “So I just thought it would be really cheeky to write about them,” laughs Daniel, who wrote the lyrics there on a Tuesday. “Just talking about the mundanity of what they were up to while being so judgmental, you know?”
Full Irish tour dates:
Wednesday 29th Oct 2025 – Voodoo, Belfast
Thursday 30th Oct 2025 – Academy, Dublin
Friday 31st Oct 2025 – Kasbah at Dolans Limerick
Saturday 1st November - The Greyhound Bar, Kilkee
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