The Mary Wallopers will release new album ‘Paddywhackery’ on September 18th.
The band’s breakout album ‘Irish Rock ‘N’ Roll’ landed back in 2023, infusing the wellspring of Irish folk song with a defiant, very 21st century sense of energy. A terrific live group, The Mary Wallopers played a packed out Glastonbury in 2024 before completing an enormous world tour.
Now they’re back. New album ‘Paddywhackery’ was constructed over a breakneck two week spell in Liverpool, with producer James Skelly and engineer Chris Taylor at the control.
Here’s Andrew and Charles Hendy from the Dundalk band on the new album…
It’s mainly about the fact that people would call us “paddywhackery” because we are too Irish or whatever, but it’s all very fucking hip to be Irish the last couple of years, and maybe that’s performative too, it’s very sincere. If all you do is serious songs, it sterilises everything. It becomes like there’s only one human emotion and its seriousness.
People are terrified of being laughed at. If people are going to call us paddywhackery anyway, we might as well just call the album Paddywhackery. So its more of a “fuck you” than anything else. We want to spread like a virus and destroy anyone who thinks they are above The Mary Wallopers…
Out on September 18th, the album will be celebrated with an enormous tour. The dates open in Edinburgh on October 13th, and hit London’s O2 Academy Brixton on October 30th.
Closing in Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on December 19th, tickets for all show go on sale on Friday, June 12th and will be available via https://lnk.to/TMW2026 or from marywallopers.com, ticketmaster.co.uk or gigsandtours.com.
New single ‘Crowns Of England’ is out now – a rousing rallying cry, it also acts as an acute and perceptive look at their experiences, and the experiences of Irish people more generally, while travelling in the UK.
The band’s Charles Hendy comments:
The song is about being in England and feeling like an outsider in all that colonialism. And it’s about Irish people who move to London and then assimilate by trying to get away from being Irish. That outsider status could apply to immigrants generally, or even people from small towns moving into cities.
England remains an archaic place in a lot of ways. There is still a monarchy. Every pub is called The Crown. There are flags everywhere. When we sing rebel songs in England, people don’t know how to react, so you feel like such an alien because it’s geographically so close but culturally there’s a massive gap. I mean, I went to Wembley to see Oasis once and a woman asked me if we had televisions in Ireland…
Tune in below.
Tracklisting:
1. Crowns of England
2. The Juice
3. Seán na Sagart
4. Smuggling the Tin
5. Castlecoe Hill
6. The Big Mixer
7. Worker’s Song
8. Banks of the Roses
9. Landlord’s Demise
10. Kit Kat Club
11. Micky Dam
Robin Murray
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