‘We rattled it out in 20 minutes’: how Kingfishr made a hurling team song into an Irish folk smash hit

‘The three of us were screaming and shouting: this is the greatest thing ever!’ … Kingfishr, L-R: Eoghan McGrath, Eddie Keogh and Eoin Fitzgibbon. Photograph: Henry Pearce.

‘Welcome to the best thing we’ve ever written,” jokes Kingfishr lead singer Eddie Keogh, in a video recorded in a studio in October 2024, before he knew just how right he was. Keogh, flanked by bandmates Eoin “Fitz” Fitzgibbon on guitar and Eoghan “McGoo” McGrath on banjo, reads from his phone as he lends his chesty baritone to the just-written chorus of Killeagh: “They’d go rarin’ and tearin’ and fightin’ for love / For the land they call Killeagh, and the Lord up above / Kill-la la, la la la la la la la la la / For the green and the white I adore / For the parish to last ever more.”

It has since spent 18 weeks in the Irish Top 10, gone four-times platinum, and become the first traditional, folk-leaning song to see this level of success since The Fields of Athenry was a hit for numerous artists in the early 80s. But the trio wrote Killeagh in 20 minutes: “It literally could not have been more of a slapped-together job,” says Keogh.