(Credits: Far Out / Josh Popov)
Mon 6 April 2026 13:00, UK
The next time someone tells you that Ireland is having a “moment” right now, please see it as your duty to swiftly remind them that their musical output simply isn’t trend-based.
Despite the overwhelming success of Fontaines DC and CMAT, along with a generation of artists following closely in their slipstream – The Murder Capital, Gurriers and Sprints – Ireland has always been a beacon of creative innovation.
Their historic culture built around community and a subsequent love of song has platformed artists from every generation, all willing to be at the vanguard of culture. Ireland’s success simply isn’t a moment; it’s everlasting.
When it comes to picking a record that defines its sound, then, well, the competition is fierce. There are multiple songs on multiple records from a string of artists who could all vie for the position of alternative anthem writer from the country, simply because of the country’s rich and diverse artistic history.
But according to Cillian Murphy, there is one record that towers above the rest as the definitive piece of Irish music – you would be forgiven for thinking it is a Fontaines DC record, given how vocal he has been in support of the band… Dubbing himself a “groupie”, he has championed the Irish five-piece as they’ve ascended to the very top in recent years and subsequently hired members of the band to pen the soundtrack for the latest Peaky Blinders film.
Murphy went further back, into the history books of classic rock, to name one artist and his magnum opus as a true representation of his beloved country. Listening to Van Morrison’s seminal record Astral Weeks, Murphy said, “I mean that album is just if you wanted to kind of distil Ireland into a record that is the album for me. It’s the most emotional kind of romantic record, I think you could possibly put on, especially on vinyl,” adding, “It’s one of my favourite albums of all time.”
Perhaps to the narrow-minded fan, that’s a confusing claim. For so long, and right now, during this wild era of music that many are labelling Ireland’s “moment”, people synonymise the music of the country with intense politics – of course, true, given their cultural backdrop, but in many ways, that’s a reductive take on its national outlook.
Ireland is a country with a rich political history, but it’s far more than that, as Astral Weeks showcases, it’s full of vibrant community, rich romance and emphatic emotion as Murphy explains – not devoid, but not always attached to the politicism of its reputation and instead embracing the escapism of its mythology.
But perhaps what makes it such an acutely Irish album, as Murphy claims, is its ability to unite. Everywhere you go in the world, Ireland’s influence and ability to connect people is unmistakable, and ultimately, that’s the most obvious thing Morrison achieved with this seminal album. It connected people through its soulful delivery of songs about love, loss and friendship, a profound skill so many great Irish people pride themselves on.
