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 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 kicks off at Birmingham Symphony Hall on Saturday October 17 and runs until Friday November 20 ending with a homecoming show at Belfast’s SSE Arena.
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 THE SHAMROCKS’ BACKSTORY AND WHAT YOU’RE ALL ABOUT?
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.
AND WHAT ABOUT CLOSER TO HOME – WHAT’S THE BELFAST REACTION TO THE SHAMROCKS?
The amazing thing about our Belfast shows, we play to pretty big crowds – like 4,000 people last December – and our crowd there is completely split down the line in terms of what background they come from.
It’s a safe space for everyone to come and enjoy Irish music, and because of that, the atmosphere is amazing. People know there’s gonna be no nonsense, nothing political, and it’s just a fun escape night out where everyone is welcome.
And for that reason, at our shows in Belfast people just bounce out of their seats and start dancing down the aisles, and it just turns into, like, a big pub.
So from that initial idea of creating something that was a celebration of ‘home’ for us all, over the years it’s equally become a celebration of anyone being welcome, which is super important to us.
HOW DID YOU GET FROM THAT ORIGINAL IDEA TO NOW PERFORMING ALL OVER THE WORLD?
Originally, we were doing guest entertainment on the cruise ships – it was a good way of getting us out in front of large crowds right from the start.
Then COVID struck and we had to step back. We started putting videos online and they went crazy viral, getting millions of views. That’s when we thought there was maybe something more to what we were doing and we started getting contacted by promoters and people all over the world asking us to come and play there.
Our first proper concert was in my home city of Lisburn. It sold out and it was raucous! Then we got invited to do the Grand Opera House in Belfast – and it became something like the fastest selling show there in 10 years, and we had to put on a second night. Crazy!
From there, it’s sort of spiralled. We’ve been all over the world now; we’ve played the West End, the Sydney Opera House, toured Australia and America. We were in America last year and on St Patrick’s Day we sung in Times Square, in New York, live on the Today show. Just before we went on air, they said: ‘Okay, guys, we’ve 10million watching’, and we were like: ‘Oh God, don’t mess it up today!’ Talk about nerve-wracking.
AND NOW YOU’RE COUNTING DOWN TO YOUR DEBUT UK TOUR!
We cannot wait! A UK tour has always been top of the bucket list for us – because we know how loved the Irish musical culture and heritage is here.
A couple of years ago, we performed at Birmingham Symphony Hall as a one-off concert on St Patrick’s Day. It was our first time performing on the mainland, and we didn’t know how it would go down. We were very new and we didn’t have anywhere near the profile that we do now… And it was the best night we’ve ever had!
Certain songs, people just sprung to their feet. There was like a 90-year-old woman on the front row, you couldn’t get her to sit down, she was going berserk.
And last year, we played the Adelphi Theatre in the West End, which might have been our craziest audience ever. They were on their feet for the majority of the second half and people came away afterwards saying ‘I felt like I was in a pub in Belfast’, and that’s what it should feel like.
So based on those shows, we’re expecting this to be the craziest tour we’ve ever done! It is going to be the big one, and we’re anticipating great audiences in terms of enjoying themselves, being in a safe space and just being able to come and celebrate.
We’re basically going to tour an Irish pub all around the UK, for people to come sing along, sing some tunes, and just have a good night out.
TELL ME A LITTLE BIT 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!
SOUNDS LIKE BELFAST IS A PRETTY CLOSE-KNIT COMMUNITY – EVERYBODY KNOWS SOMEBODY?
Definitely, especially in the music and creative industries! And we are so fortunate to be able to call on some of the most talented people for our band – there are so many talented people in and from Belfast.
I’ve always been very passionate about giving opportunities and work to people from home, because the opportunities haven’t always been there. You know, we don’t have a professional drama school in Northern Ireland, you had to go to London and then there’s huge costs involved.
We’ve seen the Northern Irish film industry booming, with things like Game Of Thrones, but I wanted to be able to contribute to the music and theatre scene. Even with the TV show we made, I made sure I used all local crew, local cameramen, local sound engineers etc.
It’s also just because we’re such a supportive country, and we all want the best for each other and to push each other on the global stage, given how small our population is. And I always feel when I’m working with people from home that they always have my best interests at heart.
SO, WE’VE GOT THE SINGERS, THE BAND, AND THE CREW TOGETHER. WHAT CAN THE AUDIENCE 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 AND IS A CITY THAT HAS TURNED A REAL CORNER. HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT FOR YOU AND THE SHAMROCKS?
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 THE TOUR PLANS, WHAT ELSE ARE THE SHAMROCKS 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 are on sale now via cuffeandtaylor.com
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“They are fabulous, superb, excellent!”
ALFIE BOE
“A world class show in which Irish charm and soaring harmonies sit alongside soulful ballads.”
THE BLURB
“Even in a West End theatre, they could make you feel like you were singing in a bar in Ireland.”
THEATRE AND TONIC
“One of Northern Ireland’s greatest ever exports.”
SUNDAY WORLD
“Songs we all know…Gilded with beautiful Irish harmonies and typical Irish sense of fun.”
IRISH NEWS