They’re the biggest new band in Ireland and they still can’t quite believe it. Now, folk rock trio Kingfishr are set to become even bigger with the release of their debut album, Halcyon
It’s the stuff rock 'n’ roll dreams are made of. Four years ago, Eddie Keogh, Eoghan 'McGoo' McGrath and Eoin 'Fitz' Fitzgibbon were studying Hardware Engineering in UL.
They liked a pint, they liked to sing. They were the kind of lads who’d produce a guitar at a house party and you’d most likely seek refuge in the kitchen, only to creep back when you realised that these guys were pretty, pretty good.
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Keogh, who hails from Enniscorthy, had been writing songs on and off since he was a teenager but when he met banjo player and Tipp man McGoo and East Cork native and ace of bass Fitz something began to crystallise.
During lockdown, they began gathering a following online; Keogh’s full-blooded baritone and the evocative instrumentation of McGoo (27) and Fitz (27) had a widescreen purity and drama that struck a chord somewhere out there in the eerie vastness of those lost days and years . . .
Fast forward to summer 2025 and Kingfishr just might be the biggest new band in Ireland. Their streaming numbers are impressive but it’s in the live arena where they have really captured hearts and minds.
They’ve already performed at major festivals and supported the likes of Dermot Kennedy, George Ezra, and Bruce Springsteen and next year they headline four massive shows in Belfast, Dublin, and Cork.
Along with Fontaines D.C., Kneecap and CMAT, the trio are the fresh faces of Ireland’s booming new wave of music - and they seem shocked by their whirlwind success. "We’d be awful f***ing eejits if we thought all this was going to happen," says Keogh (26), summing it up bluntly. "We were more likely to win the lotto than to be in this position."
Sitting in a fancy hotel beside the 3Arena, where they play two nights this December, in Dublin’s silicon docks, they are still dressed like students. Keogh is rocking the Shawshank chic of double denim and his bandmates look like they’re perpetually set for a life on the road.
In a cynical age, sincerity pours from their every pore and Kingfishr have been swept up in a tide of public approval and acclaim. Their music is seized by an earthy, soaring spirituality that manages to stay on the right side of over-earnest. They have become the Mumford & Sons it’s ok to like.
They’ve just released their debut album, Halcyon, and as you’d expect, it’s a rousing collection of tub-thumping singalongs, and quieter, more reflective moments.
"We’ve gotten away with not bringing out our debut album until now," says McGoo. "We’ve just been rolling, just trying to keep up with it."
Fitz adds, "This is the right time. We feel like we grew up in public. A lot of artists start by locking themselves away for a year, figuring out exactly what they want to sound like and exactly what they want to do but we released our first song and got thrown straight into it.
"We are learning as we go but now certainly feels like the right time to finish out the opening chapter of Kingfishr."
"We weren’t shackled down by certain conventions that a lot of musicians face," says Keogh. "You can’t look like this or you can’t sound like that. In a way, we were quite insular but we were part of a college group and a group of friends who really loved music."
One of their best songs, Shot in the Dark, is about the whole mad idea of shelving their studies and giving music stardom a go. Kingfishr fully admit they had a certain naivety which gave them an appealing 'why not’ confidence to start performing and recording.
"That’s it," says Keogh. "People look at a singer and think, 'jaysus, I could never do that!’ or movie stars or comedians or presenters. The democratisation of all those things is one of the great things about the internet.
"There’s none of this 'I’m up on my high horse, best of luck getting up here’. Now, it’s if you’re up for it, give it a whack."
And then, of course, there is the song that changed their lives - Killeagh, their paean to the hurlers of East Cork. It was written, almost as a dare, in fifteen minutes by Fitz and has become the band’s inescapable anthem, having hit No 1 in Ireland not once but twice over the summer.
"We were out in America when we heard it had gone to No 1," says McGoo. "We weren’t at home when it took off so when we came back, it was a bit mad, it all started to go a bit mad. No 1s are great but we’re not in it for No1s."
That album title, Halcyon, is quite a statement and it also comes with a nice little slice of serendipity. "I saw it in a book, I didn’t know what it meant so I looked it up," says Keogh. "It means 'the good old days’ essentially but it’s also an African kingfisher so I thought, job done!
"Its funny because there’s a lot of weird esoteric mythology around it. There’s a story that a Halcyon is a bird that calms the seas, that’s a cool story, but also the Fisher King guards the Holy Grial n Arthurian legend. It just shows up weirdly in lots of different places."
And like everything to do with Kingfishr, Halcyon was born around the table in the Tipperary dairy farm where McGoo grew up and the band first began to fall into place.
"We wrote the whole album on the farm and the whole concept behind the album is that if it doesn’t belong on the farm, it’s not right for the album," says Fitz. "As we say, we feel like we grew up in public and the one thing that keeps us locked in is the farm. We always go back there."
The place belonged to McGoo’s grandparents, with his father taking it over when he was just 12. The radio was always on and locals would drop by to sing and yarn around the kitchen table. "There has been music sessions for generations of farmers and musicians in that house," says McGoo proudly.
On an album of big crashing choruses and bold sonic vistas, Blue Skies is Kingfishr’s most panoramic moment. It’s clear that, just like Mike Scott, they have heard the Big Music.
"The Big Music, eh?" says Keogh, liking the sound of it. "I hope so."
He mentions Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Dermot Kennedy, Ben Howard, and Brandon Flowers of The Killers as inspirations but he also namechecks George Orwell and Carl Jung. He also falls asleep listening to history podcasts and has a "totally ironic" obsession with Steven Seagal.
Kingfishr are also unashamedly romantic. On recent single, Next To Me, Keogh croons "all that I can prove is that the point of me is you", the kind of sentiment you might be whispered at future first dances at weddings.
"Yes, it’s about my girlfriend," he says. "I got a lot of brownie points for that. I just hope it’s not too corny."
All three are in serious long-term relationships. In fact, I nearly fall off my chair when McGoo casually mentions that his girlfriend’s dad is Steve Dolder, the original drummer in Prefab Sprout.
"I talk to him all the time," McGoo says. "My girlfriend and her sister are musicians as well with the same management as us. They’ve got serious harmonies going on but they’re only getting going now."
"We are all terribly in love. Hahaha," laughs Fitz. "It’s terrible!"
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