The trio hold the Christmas number one slots in both the singles and album charts, with the two top album spots set to be taken by Irish acts for the first time in Irish Official Chart Company history.
Kingfishr’s hit song Killeagh has surpassed Christmas hits like Wham’s Last Christmas and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You to take the top spot.
The Irish Recorded Music Association, the body responsible for managing the Irish charts, confirmed the band will take the top places in both the singles and albums charts today.
Their album Halycon will become the Christmas number one album.
Killeagh, an ode to the home village and GAA club of their guitarist Eoin Fitzgibbon, first reached number one in May of this year and has returned to the rankings in time for Christmas week.
“It’s been the best year of our lives. We’ll never be able to thank people for what they’ve done for us,” the band said. “Dreams really do come true.”
The Limerick-based trio, consisting of lead singer Eddie Keogh, guitarist Eoin “Fitz” Fitzgibbon and Eoghan “McGoo” McGrath on banjo will play major gigs to around 50,000 in Belfast, Cork and Dublin next year.
Speaking to RTÉ’s News at One, Keogh said the story behind the hit song Killeagh started “as all good stories do” in the pub.
“Our guitarist Fitz is from Killeagh (in Co Cork) and played for the club for years and years,” he said.
“He ran into a lad when he was down home, Yank, and your man was badgering him, saying, ‘We’ve no song for the club and the junior team are doing well’.
Kingfishr
Patrick Padden (9) from Belmullet called up on stage to sing ‘Killeagh’ with Kingfishr in Castlebar
“(Eoin) said if the lads make it to the final we’ll write a song. The boys made it to the final and we were in the studio anyway so Fitz was getting calls from Yank left right and centre, and he was basically saying, ‘This lad won’t leave me alone, we’ll have to do something for them’.
“We had half an hour spare so we put something together. ‘What are the things in Killeagh?’ He said, ‘There’s a river, there’s a woods, there’s a pub and there’s a GAA pitch’. I was like, ‘We’ll fire those down and figure it out from there so’.
“There was no intention or grand scheme of what we wanted to do with it. It was a favour for one of Fitz’s friends, basically.”
He said the song took off on TikTok and “became king of an anthem” throughout the summer.
They have previously supported stars like Bruce Springsteen, George Ezra, James Bay and Snow Patrol.
Irish trio Amble released the biggest selling and most streamed Irish album of the year with their breakthrough Reverie, which is the second highest-ranking album in the Irish charts on Christmas week.
Meanwhile, Irish band Fontaines DC are also making waves internationally as their album Romance remains in the top ten charts for Christmas week.