Best of 2025 | Albums | Guestlists | Irish Albums | Irish songs |
20.
Junior Brother
Welcome To My Mountain
The Kerry alt-folk artist gets lost in the fairy fort with ‘Welcome To My Mountain’, a warped whistle and accordion-featuring tune which started with Kealy attempting to write a slipjig style of song – “the song’s main whistle riff was the result. With this, the song mutated into quite a large beast of a yoke, the beginning of a journey into the mouth of modern madness. The lyrics were largely taken from an actual firsthand account of a man getting lost in a Fairy Fort while walking home, heard from UCD’s great folklore podcast Blúiríní Béaloidis.”
19.
RÓIS x hhH
Did ye ever get The Ride at The Wake House?’
‘Did ye ever get The Ride at The Wake House?’ is a carnal electro pop clanger banger of a song that was a firm live festival favourite this summer at RÓIS shows.
It’s Richie Kavanagh’s tongue-in-cheek ‘Did Ye Ever Get the Ride On A Tractor‘ with a more morbid slant, and really, there very much is an obvious throughline between this track and MO LÉAN, RÓIS’ breakthrough mixtape which also explores particular Irish traditions around death, and that can very much mean cheeky sex at a place of mourning. Sure who knows what goes on after a wake.
18.
Kean Kavanagh
A Cowboy Song
Kean Kavanagh’s debut album The County Star embraces a hometown inspiration of Portlaoise (as seen in the trilogy of Peter McGann–starring videos) for a colloquial sounding indie and rock record with inspirations from Americana (Kean was born in Houston, Texas as it happens) and Irish folk. I could have picked any of the singles but ‘A Cowboy Song’ is the one I’ve had most on repeat.
17.
Maria Somerville
Violet
Luster, the long-awaited second album from Connemara artist and NTS radio host Maria Somerville finds the music moving further into a fog, a shoegaze, nu-gaze dreamy pop style.
Somerville is versed at making all manner of hazy music engaging and on ‘Violet’, there’s a Stereolab comparison that can’t help but uplift it in my estimation.
16.
Madra Salach
I Was Just A Boy Then
Rising Dublin six-piece Madra Salach are poised to be the most-anointed Irish band of 2026, and having seen them live recently, I think they have the goods to back up the hype.
The band’s second single ‘I Was Just A Boy’ is an expansive seven minute plus tune that builds up with mandolin and drums into a swirling drone, and reflects on teenagedom.
It’s on the It’s a Hell of an Age EP out in January.
15.
Myles Manley
DiFontaines
The singular Irish artist Myles Manley put out a triptych of songs called Jeremiaaad prodding a surreal finger at various aspects of Dublin and Irish culture, with the most potent being this pizza shop kill shot, with lyrics that sound like they are drawn from a Yelp review or comment section – ‘”DiFontaines is a next level New York slice of pizza spot,” that soon descends into aggression – “you wouldn’t know anything about that / business genius”.
14.
Morgana
Power Cuts
Morgana sticks the landing in its sophisticated terrain of electronic-tinged pop music on a song that grapples with the experience of being person pursuing a creative endeavour which often is less financially rewarding than most regular jobs as friends make a life around you, in the backdrop of being an artist in their thirties in a young focused industry.
“It’s about throwing everything at the wall to realise my dreams,” Morgana said.
Loving the shout out to Clanbrassil Street’s weirdest cocktail karaoke bar.
13.
CMAT
When A Good Man Cries
CMAT has talked at length at her love for country music (take out the u she says) – ‘When A Good Man Cries’ is her most catchy and brilliant-written version of country pop, a song flecked with melodic gems that turns the Latin for “Lord have Mercy” – “Kyrie Eleison” into a key pop moment.
It’s my two-year old’s favourite song that isn’t a kids bop.
12.
Jordan Kelly
Passat
Limerick’s Jordan Kelly returned to the underground rap music style he was known for before his Strange Boy trad rap music on this year’s Diaspora Green mixtape.
‘Passat’ is the album’s shining hook-filled evocative solo banger, but it has a lot of competition on the mixtape like ‘CC’ the posse cut with a coterie of Limerick and Dublin rappers.
11.
God Knows
It’s Been A While
A drilly Afro banger from the Zimbabwean-Irish rapper’s long-awaited and “best of” listed debut album A Future Of The Past.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
Merry Christmas Nialler9
Some great tracks I hadn’t heard here, thanks.
The link for Hold me in a new way, is wrong