For many years, Ed Sheeran has made much out of his Irish heritage. The singer-songwriter, 35, was raised in Suffolk, England; his father was born in London to Irish parents, while his mother also has Irish family members. In 2025, Sheeran said he feels “culturally Irish”, having spent many childhood holidays in Ireland and now owning an Irish passport. He’s been known to pop up at trad music sessions in Irish pubs, has posed with pints of Guinness and, to much controversy and dismay, released the Irish-influenced single “Galway Girl” in 2017, with a video starring actor Saoirse Ronan. “I’d say it’s basically my second home, musically,” Sheeran told The Louis Theroux Podcast last year. “I’d say Ireland is the place that I am most successful musically.”
So it must be a blow for Sheeran that some of the loudest backlash over the row surrounding Macklemore and Palestine has come from Ireland itself. Sheeran has been at the centre of a media storm this month over rapper Macklemore being dropped from his tour, after billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft objected to his public statements about Israel and Palestine, which he apparently told Sheeran constituted “hate speech – not freedom of speech”. In a statement, Sheeran said he was “not complicit” in the censorship and insisted he had no choice in the decision to drop Macklemore.
