There is nothing like entering a bar in Ireland and immediately having a wave of Irish trad music wash over you.
Irish tunes, both trad and otherwise, were a big motivator in my trip to Ireland back in June 2015 (admittedly along with watching P.S. I Love You on repeat). It seemed every night while traipsing around Ireland my friends and I found amazing pubs with homegrown singer-songwriters to enjoy.
And by the way, if you think you can go to Ireland and somehow not hear “Galway Girl” one million times, you are sadly mistaken. By the end of your trip, you will be banging your head against pub walls because of this song, thereby spilling your precious Guinness everywhere.
You can read more about some musical surprises I had in Ireland in my Finding John Denver in Galway post.
So, without much further ado, I present to you my Ultimate Ireland Playlist!
Scroll to the bottom of the page to find my playlist in Spotify form!
1. Glen Hansard + Eddie Vedder “Drive All Night”
2. Flogging Molly “Irish Pub Song”
3. Damien Rice “Volcano”
4. Kodaline “The One”
5. Stiff Little Fingers “Johnny Was”
6. Thin Lizzy “Cowboy Song”
7. The Cranberries “When You’re Gone”
8. Rory Gallagher “Bad Penny”
9. The Dubliners “Rocky Road To Dublin”
10. God Is An Astronaut “Post Mortem”
11. Van Morrison “Astral Weeks”
12. The Pogues “Fairytale Of New York”
13. Bing Crosby “Galway Bay”
14. Steve Earle “Galway Girl”
15. U2 “Beautiful Day”
What would be on your Ireland Playlist? Let me know in the comments!
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I love your song list! I went in 2022, and I had a pretty similar songlist, but I need to include Sinead O’Connor’s “Last Day of Our Acquaintance” or “Mandinka”, The Frames “Pavement Tune”, Hothouse Flowers “Don’t Go”, and I couldn’t help but sing “Sweetest Thing” by U2 when I was going through Fitzwilliam Square because they filmed the video there. Also Glen Hansard singing “Say it to me Now” on Grafton Street in “Once”.
Another note of interesting…the Irish Rock ‘n’ Roll Museum has all of Phil Lynott’s personal collection of Thin Lizzy’s albums, his home jukebox, his tour jackets, a bunch of the basses he always played on stage, and a white Gretsch Falcon thought to be lost to time that was owned by Sylvain of the New York Dolls, to Joe Strummer of The Clash, to Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, to Phil!!!
Great list! I don’t know a few of these songs, definitely going to check them out.
That’s so cool that there’s an Irish Rock N Roll Museum. When I saw you wrote this, I wondered how on earth I didn’t know about the museum when I was there. Turns out it opened just a few months after my trip to Dublin in 2015! Looks like I’m going to have to book another trip now and write some more blog posts :).
Thanks so much for the comment, Craig!