The Mary Wallopers have spoken to NME about using their “heavier” and most original album yet, ‘Paddywhackery’, to chronicle the isolation of living as an outsider in England. Check out new single ‘Landlord’s Demise’ below, exclusively on NME, along with the full interview.
The raucous Irish rebel folk band will release their third studio record on September 18 (pre-order here). Recorded with The Coral’s James Skelly in two weeks, the project marks a step up from their 2022 self-titled debut and the following year’s ‘Irish Rock N Roll’, both of which leaned on traditional Irish songs and ballads.
- READ MORE: The Mary Wallopers: “There needs to be a voice that’s giving the rowdy side of folk back to people”
Hailing from Dundalk, County Louth, the band are led by brothers and co-frontmen Charles and Andrew Hendy. Thanks to the rowdy energy of their live shows, and a number of eye-catching TV and online performances, their profile has risen to the point that the tour in support of ‘Paddywhackery’ will see them headline venues from London’s Brixton Academy to Dublin’s 3Arena.
Although the group are still primarily based in Dundalk, lead single ‘Crowns Of England’ details the strange displacement and detachment they have experienced in England, depicting a country mired in misty-eyed nostalgia for a half-understood history. Its video stars Danielle Galligan (House Of Guinness) as an Irish woman wandering from one pub named The Crown to another, each one adorned with Winston Churchill imagery.
The Mary Wallopers are no strangers to speaking their minds politically. Last year, their set at Victorious Festival was cut off almost before it began, with event organisers removing a Palestinian flag from their stage setup and cutting off their sound. The band were later accused of leading a “discriminatory chant”, although they countered this with their own video footage, which appeared to contradict the claim. The festival later issued an apology.
NME spoke to Andrew Hendy about the band’s reflection on that controversy, how it made the festival “look very bad”, and why he’s not shying away from “saying something that’s right”.
It comes as Hendy and co. share their latest track, ‘Landlord’s Demise’ – “a song about the fall of empire in Ireland, and an expression of our disdain for the Landlord Class”.
“It’s based on a true story about a Manor House falling down around its aristocratic owner, and is also inspired by Tom Barry’s book Guerilla Days In Ireland,” he said. “It’s a song for all the struggling renters, in dingy flats and mould-infested bathrooms, living in fear of another rent hike.”
Read on for the rest of the interview, where Hendy also discussed The Mary Wallopers’ “heavier and more uptempo” new songs, “capturing that raw energy” of their live shows, “going to the country that did the colonising”, and more.
NME: Hi, Andrew. The new album is called ‘Paddywhackery’, a word that has been used as a stick to beat Irish people with over the years. To co-opt a beloved phrase of the British government, are you taking back control of that term?
Andrew Hendy: “Yeah, definitely. Sometimes Irish people use it to beat themselves up, too. Around the turn of the 19th century, a lot of performers from Ireland who were really talented and creative would have sung, especially in New York, songs that were funny and played with the idea of Irishness. After a while, people decided it was a bit naff or whatever.
“Now I think Irish folk musicians, and even people within Irish culture, are afraid to do the humour element of Irish music. We’ve always been doing some of those songs, like ‘The Blarney Stone’ and ‘Eileen Óg’ – songs that are incredibly well-written and funny.
“So we’re playing with the idea that Irishness and Irish expression can be both things. It can be serious, poignant, sad and rebellious, but it can also be good craic. We’re trying to take ‘Paddywhackery’ back as our own militant thing and diminish its insulting power.”
The single ‘Crowns Of England’ and its video depict an Irish person in London drifting from one pub called The Crown to the next, lost in the history and iconography of the UK. Is it meant as a reflection of being an outsider in England?
“In a way, the song is addressing the feelings of isolation when you’re living away from home. Especially being from a country that was colonised, then going to the country that did the colonising – even though the relationship between Ireland and England is very good now, there are still feelings there.
“It’s something a lot of immigrants can relate to: missing home. In the ’60s, Irish navvies would have always drunk in The Crown. There’s something about all these pubs in England not being able to quench the thirst for the community back home.”
There’s a line in the song about you performing in one of those pubs: “They don’t know if they should clap or throw me out again”. That seems to get to the heart of the issue…
“A lot of ordinary people, through no fault of their own, don’t know the history of what happened with Britain and Ireland. When you’re singing rebel songs in a pub, sometimes people will be loving it and think it’s great. But then if we end up singing an IRA song, some people in the pub might get their backs up. Obviously, our relationship with the IRA was: ordinary people who were being oppressed, fighting back in their own country to get equal rights. But in the newspapers, what people in England heard of the IRA was this big terrorist threat from monsters from a foreign nation coming to cause damage.
“So when we’re singing rebel songs, sometimes people can be a bit taken aback by it. But when you talk to people and start the conversation, and people learn a bit more about the history, they always come round to it.
“Ordinary people everywhere are decent and great. But if the ordinary English person knew what happened – what crimes the British Army did, what crimes Churchill did in India, all around the world, in African countries as well – they wouldn’t be so quick to be marching with St George’s crosses and stuff like that.”
There are more of your own original songs on this album than before. How did that come to be?
“I think we got to a point where we’d learned a few hundred songs, and we could have kept releasing traditional songs but through touring and playing loads of gigs, I definitely figured out more what I wanted the band to sound like. A lot of these songs are heavier and more uptempo, and I was definitely thinking about the crowd having a better time when they’re listening to them. It was exciting to finally figure out how we want to write songs and make them work with the band.”
You recorded the whole thing in a fortnight with James Skelly – did that help to capture that raw energy?
“Our best thing has always been the energy of our live gigs, and capturing that raw energy was very important. There’s a law of diminishing returns where every time you do a take, it gets a bit worse. Having that pressure to get songs recorded in two or three takes was class. James was good at encouraging us to lean one way or the other with a take. He was very good at getting good energy out of us. Energy is more important than having everything polished. All my favourite recordings are raw recordings.”
At Victorious Festival in Portsmouth last year, your set was cut off before you even started, and a Palestinian flag was taken from the stage. You were then accused of a discriminatory chant, but you put out a video that contradicted the festival’s official statement. They later issued an apology. How do you reflect on that now?
“If you believe in saying something that’s right, you should just do it regardless. Especially as an artist, and even more so if you’re an artist that considers yourself politically engaged. You can’t shy away from doing something for fear of not being able to get a gig.
“Obviously, the genocide is still happening in Palestine, so I don’t want to be talking about us taking a stage with a flag too much, because it’s a minor gesture really to have it on stage. We just want to show our support to people in Palestine.”
Were you shocked by what happened?
“In a way, yes, in another way, no. There has been so much whitewashing of the genocide that’s happening in Palestine that, in that sense, it’s not really a surprise that a festival that has the British Navy handing out hats and flags in the middle of the festival is going to have a problem with a Palestinian flag.
“But in another way, I didn’t think they’d actually do it, because obviously it made them look very bad. That’s why we didn’t have to do anything; we just shared the footage of what happened. If somebody is trying to cover up the truth, and if they’re on the wrong side of morality all the time, they will show themselves up for being that. They actually brought more attention to it by trying to push us into changing what we do every gig.”
A number of other artists pulled out of the festival in solidarity — The Last Dinner Party, The Architect, Cliffords – and Vampire Weekend made a statement from the stage as well. What was your reaction to that?
“We didn’t ask anyone to pull out, they did that of their own accord, and I’ll always have respect for the bands that did that, because it shows they care more about what’s right than just getting their slot at the gig.
“There was a lot of stress after we went off stage that evening, but seeing that other bands had pulled their sets in support of the message we were trying to put out was a very nice feeling. It was very supportive, and fair play to them. I know they weren’t doing it for us; they were doing it for the point of Palestine. That was class. It was the right thing to do, and they did it because they’re good people.”
‘Paddywhackery’ is released on September 18 via BC Records – pre-order it here. The Mary Wallopers’ UK and Ireland tour kicks off this autumn – find any remaining tickets here, and see the full schedule below.
OCTOBER
13 – Corn Exchange, Edinburgh
14 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle
16 – Cardiff University, Cardiff
17 – Brighton Centre, Brighton
19 – Octagon Centre, Sheffield
20 – Corn Exchange, Cambridge
22 – Olympia, Liverpool
23 – O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester
26 – Rock City, Nottingham
27 – O2 Academy, Leeds
29 – O2 Academy, Birmingham
30 – O2 Academy Brixton, London
DECEMBER
10 – 3Arena, Dublin
19 – OVO Hydro, Glasgow
