Interview: Northern Irish band The Shamrocks talk about what to expect as they embark on their debut UK tour

Nation.Cymru staff

Brought together to showcase the best of Northern Irish musical talent while sharing the country’s passion for a new future, Emmy Award-winning group The Shamrocks are preparing for their Llandudno date on their debut UK tour this autumn.

After wowing audiences across the globe – from the Sydney Opera House to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC – the five-piece harmony and multi-instrumental group are set to bring their incredible show and Belfast charm to some of the most prestigious venues across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the autumn.

The roaring, rousing atmosphere of traditional Irish pubs will be brought to stages across the country, as the 12-date tour will take them to Llandudno on Thursday October 29.

Dubbed ‘one of Northern Ireland’s greatest ever exports’, The Shamrocks promise a night packed full of Irish charm, with classics including Danny Boy, Wild Rover and Whiskey In The Jar reimagined in their unique style, alongside original songs and compositions.

Founding member of The Shamrocks, Raymond Walsh chats about their journey, the power of live music and what to look forward to when they hit the road this autumn.

How did The Shamrocks get started? 

Back in 2018, I was performing in Les Misérables in the West End, and a lot of people were saying to me things like ‘Oh, you’re from Belfast, is that safe?’

And to me, Belfast is one of the most welcoming and safe places I know, so I wanted to create a group that showcased the city and Northern Ireland, on a global scale – but in a way that wasn’t focussed on The Troubles, in a way that was positive, uplifting, and with a message to show how far Belfast has come.

So that was the inspiration, and luckily I happened to know a group of lads back home – who came from different sides of the community – who were the most talented lads that I knew. I thought not only could I showcase their talent, but I could actually showcase us as a group of Catholic and Protestant lads to represent the future of Belfast and Northern Ireland.

How do audiences react to your backstory?

We’ve been going for eight years now – and really, that message is more relevant than ever. Every time we talk about that in one of our shows, the crowd goes crazy. It’s not even necessarily the Northern Irish element of it today, but maybe the general climate at the minute, but it seems to be a message that’s really resonating.

Tell me more about the members of The Shamrocks

We’re two sets of brothers, myself and Jack, and Jimmy and Nathan Johnston, and our friend Matthew Campbell.

Background-wise, I trained in musical theatre and was working in the West End. My brother Jack actually went to film school in Los Angeles and trained as a film director.

Then there are the Johnston brothers. Jamie was an environmental driller before The Shamrocks but I always knew him as the boy back home in Belfast who was always singing, whether it was swing and Sinatra, or trad folk songs. Through him I met his brother Nathan, who trained in musical theatre, and as soon as he graduated two years ago, I had to get him on board.

And then Matthew; he studied musical engineering and production, so his background would have been a lot in composing/orchestrating, musical directing. He plays 14 instruments! I went to see a concert he was playing the drums in, then he got up and sang. It was the first time I’d ever heard Matthew sing, and again, I had to have him involved.

Lo and behold, I found out down the line that my dad, who is our bass guitar player, learnt to play from borrowing Matthew’s dad’s guitar – which was a weird connection to discover!

What can audiences expect from The Shamrocks live?

It will be a proper celebration of Irish music through the years.

We have all the proper Irish instruments too; the Uilleann pipes, the bodhrán drums, the whistles. It’s all part of making it a truly authentic show; an Irish show direct from Ireland.

One thing we love to do, and audiences seem to love it, is we tell the background of a lot of these songs. You know, like Danny Boy or Red Is The Rose, where people are familiar with the songs, but maybe aren’t familiar with what they’re about and we like to share that.

And then we always say you’ll sing along, you’ll cry, you’ll learn some drinking songs and the claps that go along with them, so if you ever come to Ireland, you’ll be able to join in.

It seems to work and people seem to love it!

One of the best reactions I remember, we’d performed on a cruise ship and an older gentleman came up and told us he had served in Belfast during The Troubles. He said he never thought he’d see a day where a group of lads from both sides could be standing together singing something like Danny Boy. He started to cry and finished by saying ‘it just makes me think that everything I lived through was worth it in the end to see you guys stand together’.

So although it is a lot of fun, it can also be a really powerful show. And hopefully for a lot of people it will be a nice new way of looking at Northern Ireland, and a new way of looking at Belfast, to see just how far things have come along in a relatively short period of history.

It seems like Belfast is having a bit of a moment. How important is that for you and the band?

Oh, yeah, it is! There’s so much to do there now for all ages and all sorts of interests. It’s hugely important to us. It’s home!

I was eight when the Good Friday Agreement was signed – and grew up a little bit through it all in the 90s. So for our generation, there’s a feeling of wanting to prove to the rest of the world how far we’ve come. People in Belfast go above and beyond; they’re extra friendly because they want you to feel safe, to feel welcome, and are so proud of what we’ve come through and what the generation before us went through to get to where we are today.

My generation feels a huge responsibility I think to be a reflection of the new era and to show how much has changed.

Personally, my identity has always been about trying to take people as they are, rather than what their religion is, or what their background is. For all us boys, we’ve grown up in that generation of trying to be the new Belfast.

It’s a great city that we are super proud to represent on a global scale, and to be able to tell the audience about our story through the show. And we’ve done hundreds of shows over the years, and there’s not been a single time when we talk about this that the whole place hasn’t just erupted in a round of applause.

Alongside tour plans, what else are you working on?

We have been working on a lot of new music – our own compositions – and we’re aiming to record and release an album before the tour starts!

We released a Christmas song, which did really well back home. It was the first time we’d put our own original music out, and it felt like a bit of a breakthrough as we felt it bridged a kind of divide, between creating a show where people come to enjoy the trad Irish songs they know and love – but that we had musical success in our own right too.

It’s great to think we can maybe offer our own contributions to the amazing Irish songbook. Our aim is that when people listen to our songs, they fit right in with those classics to create a new generation of Irish music that Irish people will be just as proud of as the likes of Whiskey In The Jar, Wild Rover or Danny Boy.

Tickets for their tour are available here. 

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