11 Best Irish Rock Songs: Anthems That Shook the World

If you’ve ever stood in a sweaty club at 2am watching a crowd lose their minds to a Irish rock anthem, you already know what I’m talking about. The 11 best Irish rock songs aren’t just great tracks — they’re proof that a small island on the edge of Europe has produced some of the most powerful rock music ever recorded.

Quick Comparison Table

I’ve been spinning records and running DJ sets for over two decades, and Irish rock keeps showing up in my crates no matter what genre I’m working. There’s a rawness and an emotional honesty in this music that cuts through a crowd faster than almost anything else I’ve found. When I drop “Zombie” after a slow build, the room just explodes.

What makes the 11 best Irish rock songs so special is that they come from a tradition of storytelling that goes back centuries. The Irish have always known how to carry grief, joy, and rebellion in the same breath, and rock music gave that tradition a Marshall stack and a drum kit. From Thin Lizzy’s hard-charging riffs to The Cranberries’ aching melodies, these songs carry weight that outlasts any trend.

I’ve traveled to Dublin twice specifically for music, and both times I came back with crates full of records and a renewed respect for what this island produces. The community around Irish rock — from the pubs to the festivals to the vinyl shops on Wexford Street — reminded me why I fell in love with music in the first place. These 11 songs are the ones I keep coming back to, the ones that never leave the rotation.

Table of Contents

1. With or Without You — U2

2. Sunday Bloody Sunday — U2

3. Zombie — The Cranberries

4. Linger — The Cranberries

5. The Boys Are Back in Town — Thin Lizzy

6. Whiskey in the Jar — Thin Lizzy

7. Nothing Compares 2 U — Sinéad O’Connor

8. Black Is the Colour — In Tua Nua

9. When the Stars Go Blue — The Frames

10. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For — U2

11. Galway Girl — Mundy

List Of Irish Rock Songs

1. With or Without You — U2

🎯 Why this made the list: This is the song that made the whole world stop and listen to an Irish band like never before.

📅 1987 · 🎵 Arena Rock / Art Rock · ▶️ 680M views · 🎧 920M streams

The Joshua Tree arrived in March 1987 and instantly rewrote the rules of what rock music could achieve commercially and artistically. “With or Without You” was the album’s lead single, and it became U2’s first number-one hit in the United States, sitting on top of the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks. The song announced that four lads from Artane and Malahide were now the biggest rock band on the planet.

The musical architecture here is stunning in its restraint. Bono’s vocal builds from a hushed whisper to a full-throated howl over Adam Clayton’s hypnotic bass pulse and The Edge’s infinite sustain guitar — a technique created using a custom-built lap steel fitted with an Infinite Guitar device. The song never quite resolves harmonically, which mirrors its lyrical tension between desire and desperation perfectly.

I have dropped this track as a closer in big-room sets at least a hundred times over the years, and the reaction never changes — people stop dancing, they stop talking, and they just listen. There’s a frequency in that Edge guitar tone that seems to bypass the brain and go straight to something deeper. It’s the one song I trust completely in any room, any crowd, any city.

“With or Without You” won a Grammy for Record of the Year and helped The Joshua Tree become one of the best-selling albums of all time with over 25 million copies sold worldwide. Rolling Stone ranked it among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it remains a defining touchstone of 1980s rock music. Forty years on, it still sounds like nothing else.

2. Sunday Bloody Sunday — U2

🎯 Why this made the list: A protest song so urgent and so perfectly constructed that it sounds as relevant today as it did in 1983.

📅 1983 · 🎵 Post-Punk / New Wave · ▶️ 145M views · 🎧 310M streams

Released as part of War, U2’s third studio album, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” confronted the Troubles in Northern Ireland with a directness that was almost unheard of in mainstream rock at the time. The song references the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1972, when British soldiers shot dead 14 civil rights protesters in Derry. Bono was famously careful to introduce it live as “not a rebel song,” insisting it was a plea for peace rather than a political rallying cry.

Larry Mullen Jr.’s martial snare drum opens the track like a gunshot, and it immediately signals that this is a different kind of rock song. The Edge’s chiming guitar and Adam Clayton’s locked-in bass create a relentless forward momentum, while Bono’s vocal moves between anguish and defiance with remarkable control. The violin line, played by Steve Wickham, adds a distinctly Irish folk texture that grounds the song in its cultural origins.

I first played this in a late-night set in Chicago about fifteen years ago, slotting it between two post-punk classics, and someone came up to me afterward with tears on their face. That’s the power of this track — it carries real history inside it, and you can feel that weight when the needle hits the groove. It taught me early in my career that rock music can do more than entertain; it can bear witness.

“Sunday Bloody Sunday” reached number 26 on the UK Singles Chart and helped War become U2’s first UK number-one album. The live version captured on Under a Blood Red Sky became iconic, particularly Bono’s dramatic wave of a white flag during performances. It remains one of the most politically significant rock songs ever written by an Irish artist.

3. Zombie — The Cranberries

🎯 Why this made the list: Dolores O’Riordan turned grief and rage into a vocal performance that nobody on earth could replicate.

📅 1994 · 🎵 Alternative Rock / Grunge-influenced · ▶️ 1.1B views · 🎧 890M streams

“Zombie” was written by Dolores O’Riordan in response to the IRA bombings in Warrington, England in 1993, which killed two children — Jonathan Ball, aged three, and Tim Parry, aged twelve. The song appeared on No Need to Argue, The Cranberries’ second album, and became an enormous worldwide hit, reaching number one in multiple European countries. It remains one of the most-streamed Irish rock songs in history and crossed one billion YouTube views before any other Irish track.

The arrangement is a masterclass in dynamics. The song opens with a delicate, almost lullaby-like guitar figure before erupting into a massive, distortion-heavy chorus driven by guitarist Noel Hogan’s crunching power chords. But the real instrument here is Dolores’s voice — her Irish cadence, her trademark yodel-like embellishments, and the raw fury she channels in the final choruses make this one of the most distinctive vocal performances in rock history.

I’ve been playing “Zombie” in sets since the mid-90s and it has never once failed me. It’s one of those songs that transcends genre — I’ve dropped it in alternative nights, 90s throwback sets, even late-night club sessions, and it always hits. The way the crowd reacts when that first distorted guitar chord crashes in after the quiet intro is one of my favourite moments in DJing.

“Zombie” won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Song in 1994, a significant milestone for Irish rock on the global stage. It spent 36 weeks on the French charts alone and brought the reality of the Troubles to international audiences in a way that political speeches never could. Dolores O’Riordan’s passing in 2018 gave the song a heartbreaking new resonance, but the music itself remains as fierce and alive as ever.

4. Linger — The Cranberries

🎯 Why this made the list: A devastating slow-burn breakup song that showcases O’Riordan’s voice at its most achingly beautiful.

📅 1993 · 🎵 Dream Pop / Alternative Rock · ▶️ 230M views · 🎧 650M streams

“Linger” was released in 1993 from The Cranberries’ debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? and served as the track that introduced the band to a global audience. Written by Dolores O’Riordan and Noel Hogan when Dolores was just nineteen years old, the song draws on a real romantic experience — the kind of painful, complicated love that only makes sense from the inside. It reached the top 10 in the UK, Ireland, and the United States, an extraordinary debut achievement.

The production by Stephen Street is deceptively simple — acoustic guitar, gentle percussion, subtle strings — and it allows O’Riordan’s voice to fill every inch of the sonic space. Her vocal phrasing is idiosyncratic in the best possible way, landing on syllables in places no trained singer would choose, which gives the song an intimacy and an authenticity that feels completely unguarded. The melody lingers, appropriately enough, long after the song has ended.

In late-night sets, this is my bridge song — the one that takes the energy down from the peak and into something tender and reflective. I’ve watched couples hold each other tighter when this comes on, watched solo listeners close their eyes and drift somewhere private. That’s a special kind of power, and it comes from the fact that Dolores wrote something genuinely true rather than commercially calculated.

“Linger” spent 26 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number eight, helping The Cranberries crack the American market in a way that few Irish acts had managed before. It contributed to the album selling over five million copies in the US alone. Three decades later, it remains a staple of 90s playlists and a benchmark for emotionally direct songwriting.

5. The Boys Are Back in Town — Thin Lizzy

🎯 Why this made the list: The greatest hard rock swagger anthem Ireland ever produced, and still one of the finest opening riffs in rock history.

📅 1976 · 🎵 Hard Rock / Classic Rock · ▶️ 95M views · 🎧 280M streams

“The Boys Are Back in Town” was written by Phil Lynott and released on Thin Lizzy’s sixth studio album Jailbreak in 1976. It reached number eight on the UK Singles Chart and broke into the American top ten — a historic achievement for an Irish rock band at a time when the transatlantic crossover was far from guaranteed. Phil Lynott, the mixed-race son of a Brazilian father and Irish mother, was one of the most charismatic frontmen rock has ever produced, and this song showcases every dimension of that charisma.

The dual guitar attack of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson is the song’s engine, and the interplay between their twin leads remains one of the most imitated sounds in classic rock. The opening lick — those four descending notes — is instantly recognizable to any rock fan alive, and the rhythm section of Brian Downey and Lynott himself locks everything into a groove that feels both muscular and propulsive. The song is simultaneously a celebration of friendship, nostalgia, and the pure pleasure of a good night out.

I keep this one in my classic rock arsenal for the moment I need to shift the energy in a room from warm to electric. There’s something universally understood about what this song is saying — the joy of reunion, the anticipation of a big night — and it translates across generations in a way that few 1970s tracks still manage. I played it at a private event last year and watched a room of twentysomethings lose their minds to a song recorded before they were born.

The song has been covered hundreds of times, sampled, used in film and television globally, and consistently appears on lists of the greatest rock songs ever recorded. Phil Lynott died in January 1986, but his statue on Harry Street in Dublin stands as permanent testament to his place in Irish cultural history. Thin Lizzy remains one of the most important bands Ireland has ever produced, and this is their crown jewel.

6. Whiskey in the Jar — Thin Lizzy

🎯 Why this made the list: Thin Lizzy took a centuries-old Irish folk ballad and turned it into a hard rock thunderclap that changed everything.

📅 1972 · 🎵 Folk Rock / Hard Rock · ▶️ 55M views · 🎧 195M streams

“Whiskey in the Jar” is an Irish traditional song with roots going back to at least the 17th century, but Thin Lizzy’s 1972 recording transformed it into something entirely new. Phil Lynott’s bass-driven arrangement and Eric Bell’s electric guitar gave the ancient melody a raw, electric urgency that had never been heard before. The single reached number six on the UK charts and became the band’s commercial breakthrough, establishing them as a serious force in British and Irish rock.

What Thin Lizzy did here was essentially invent a template for Irish rock itself — taking the melodic and narrative traditions of Irish folk music and running them through the voltage of electric rock. Bell’s guitar solo is fiery and inventive, and Lynott’s vocal performance walks a perfect line between storytelling and rock swagger. The production, though modest by modern standards, has an immediacy that still jumps out of speakers today.

As a DJ, I use this track when I want to signal the Irish roots of a set — it’s a bridge between the folk tradition and the rock tradition, and it works beautifully in that role. I’ve also used it as a tempo-setter in the early part of a classic rock set, because that opening guitar figure grabs attention immediately without demanding full commitment from the crowd. It’s a smart, flexible record.

Metallica’s 1998 cover introduced “Whiskey in the Jar” to an entirely new generation of rock fans, which says everything about the durability of Thin Lizzy’s arrangement. That cover won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance, which is a remarkable tribute to a song that Thin Lizzy recorded for £1,000 in a Dublin studio. The original remains the definitive version, and it’s a cornerstone of Irish rock history.

7. Nothing Compares 2 U — Sinéad O’Connor

🎯 Why this made the list: Possibly the most emotionally devastating vocal performance in the history of Irish music, full stop.

📅 1990 · 🎵 Art Rock / Soul · ▶️ 340M views · 🎧 430M streams

“Nothing Compares 2 U” was written by Prince for his side project The Family in 1985, but it was Sinéad O’Connor’s 1990 recording that transformed it into one of the most iconic songs of the 20th century. Released on her second album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, the song reached number one in multiple countries simultaneously and spent four weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart. Sinéad’s shaved-head image and the close-up video directed by John Maybury became instant cultural landmarks.

The arrangement, produced by Nellee Hooper, strips everything back to give O’Connor’s voice maximum space. A sparse piano figure, subtle strings, and minimal percussion create a frame for one of the most remarkable vocal displays you will ever hear. The moment in the music video when a genuine tear rolls down Sinéad’s cheek — reportedly triggered by thoughts of her late mother — is one of the most affecting moments in pop video history, and it’s entirely in keeping with the song’s emotional honesty.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve played this in a club set, because it demands a particular kind of silence and attention that isn’t always available in a DJ context. But when the moment is right — the lights low, the crowd reflective, the night winding down — this song works like nothing else. I played it once at the end of a late-night set and the whole room just stood still. That kind of power is rare.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” won three MTV Video Music Awards in 1990, including Video of the Year, and helped I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got sell over seven million copies worldwide. Sinéad O’Connor went on to become one of the most celebrated and controversial artists of her generation, a genuine original in a music industry that rarely produces them. Her passing in 2023 was a devastating loss for Irish music and for music everywhere.

8. Black Is the Colour — In Tua Nua

🎯 Why this made the list: A criminally overlooked Irish rock gem that fuses traditional melody with 80s production power in a way that still sounds electrifying.

📅 1987 · 🎵 Celtic Rock / Art Rock · ▶️ 2.1M views · 🎧 8M streams

In Tua Nua were one of the most exciting bands to emerge from Dublin’s vibrant mid-1980s rock scene, and “Black Is the Colour” — their reworking of the Scottish/Irish traditional song “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” — is their finest moment. The band included uilleann pipe player Steve Wickham (who later joined The Waterboys) and vocalist Leslie Dowdall, whose powerful, distinctively Irish voice was one of the most compelling in the country. The track was released on their debut album Vaudeville and represents a high-water mark of Celtic rock.

What makes this recording special is the collision of traditional Irish musical identity with full-blown 80s rock production. Wickham’s uilleann pipes weave through distorted guitars and driving drums in a way that sounds both ancient and completely contemporary. Dowdall’s vocal carries real folk tradition in its grain while also commanding the kind of presence needed to front a rock band. The song is a blueprint for everything that Celtic rock can be at its best.

I discovered In Tua Nua relatively late in my DJ career, and finding this track felt like uncovering buried treasure. It’s the kind of record I pull out when I want to show a knowledgeable crowd that Irish rock goes deeper than the obvious names, and the response is always the same — people lean in, ask what it is, and want to hear more. That reaction is one of the best feelings in DJing.

In Tua Nua never achieved the commercial heights of their contemporaries despite appearing on The Joshua Tree tour with U2 and receiving significant critical praise. Their story is a reminder that the Irish rock scene of the 1980s was producing extraordinary music at every level, not just in the superstar tier. “Black Is the Colour” deserves to be heard by every fan of Irish rock who hasn’t yet found it.

9. When the Stars Go Blue — The Frames

🎯 Why this made the list: Glen Hansard’s songwriting at its most heartbreakingly direct, proof that Irish indie rock has its own profound emotional language.

📅 2001 · 🎵 Indie Rock / Folk Rock · ▶️ 18M views · 🎧 42M streams

The Frames were one of the most consistently brilliant Irish rock bands of the 1990s and 2000s, and Glen Hansard — their frontman, guitarist, and principal songwriter — is one of the finest songwriters Ireland has produced. “When the Stars Go Blue,” released on For the Birds in 2001, became the band’s most widely known song after Ryan Adams covered it and then The Corrs and Bono performed a version that charted internationally. But the original Frames recording has a stripped-back emotional intensity that no cover has quite matched.

Hansard’s guitar playing on this track is economical and deeply expressive — every note seems to have been chosen with care. His voice, even then, had that quality of a man singing from somewhere very close to pain, the slight roughness in the upper register that makes everything he sings feel unguarded and genuine. The song builds from a quiet, almost private opening into something that opens up emotionally like a room you weren’t expecting to find behind a door.

I’ve followed The Frames since the early 2000s, catching them at Vicar Street in Dublin on one of my first trips to the city, and that show changed my understanding of what a rock band could do in a room. Hansard’s connection with an audience is extraordinary, and this song always seemed to be the one that brought the night to its emotional centre. I use it in late-night indie sets as a moment of reflection before the final push.

The Frames never broke internationally the way their talent deserved, though Hansard later won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Falling Slowly” from the film Once. “When the Stars Go Blue” remains a touchstone for anyone who knows and loves Irish indie rock, and The Frames’ catalogue is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the depth of what Dublin’s rock scene produced in that era.

10. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For — U2

🎯 Why this made the list: A gospel-rock anthem that turns spiritual longing into the most euphoric sound U2 ever created.

📅 1987 · 🎵 Gospel Rock / Arena Rock · ▶️ 310M views · 🎧 580M streams

The second single from The Joshua Tree, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987 and cemented the album’s position as one of the defining records of its decade. The song draws heavily on gospel and soul traditions — Bono has cited his Christian faith and his spiritual searching as the emotional core of the lyrics. The famous busking scene filmed on a Las Vegas street for the music video gave the song an additional layer of romantic mythology.

The musical arrangement is built on one of The Edge’s most inspired rhythm guitar parts — a repetitive, almost hypnotic figure that gives the song a forward momentum that never lets up. When the gospel choir enters toward the end of the track, the song transforms into something genuinely transcendent. Larry Mullen Jr.’s drumming is loose enough to breathe while still driving the song relentlessly forward. It is, in purely musical terms, close to perfect.

For me, this is the U2 song I reach for when I want uplift rather than emotion — when I need a room to rise rather than to feel. It has an energy that “With or Without You” doesn’t, a kinetic joy beneath the searching lyrics that makes it function differently in a crowd. I’ve closed festival sets with it, and the feeling when the choir section hits and hundreds of voices sing along is genuinely one of the best moments I’ve experienced behind the decks.

The song was ranked number 96 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and has been covered by a remarkable range of artists, from Elvis Costello to Chaka Khan. The live version from Rattle and Hum, recorded at Madison Square Garden, is arguably even better than the studio recording. Few songs in the rock canon match its combination of spiritual depth and pure euphoric energy.

11. Galway Girl — Mundy

🎯 Why this made the list: The folk-rock song that became Ireland’s ultimate closing-time singalong and an unofficial anthem of Irish identity worldwide.

📅 1996 · 🎵 Folk Rock / Celtic Rock · ▶️ 22M views · 🎧 55M streams

“Galway Girl” was written by the Westmeath singer-songwriter Mundy in collaboration with Sharon Shannon, one of Ireland’s greatest traditional accordion players. Originally released on Mundy’s 1996 debut album Jelly Legs, the song didn’t truly explode until a re-recorded version with Shannon was released in 2007, becoming a phenomenon in Ireland and among the Irish diaspora worldwide. It is, without question, one of the most beloved folk-rock songs Ireland has ever produced.

The song is built on a melody so natural and so immediately singable that it feels less like it was written and more like it was discovered — as if it had always existed and Mundy just happened to find it. Shannon’s accordion gives the track its unmistakably Irish character while Mundy’s guitar and vocal delivery sit squarely in the rock-folk tradition that runs from Van Morrison through to The Frames. The energy is infectious, the feel is celebratory, and the whole thing is over in under four minutes, which makes it perfectly designed for a crowd singalong.

I always save “Galway Girl” for the right moment — usually late in a set when a crowd has had enough drinks and enough music to be ready to fully commit. The recognition is instant wherever I play it, and I’ve dropped it in cities from New York to Melbourne to watch Irish expats and their friends link arms and sing every word. That universality is rare, and it comes from the fact that the song captures something genuinely true about a certain kind of Irish evening.

While Mundy’s version remains the folk-rock original and the one I always play, it’s worth noting that Ed Sheeran released his own “Galway Girl” in 2017 — an entirely different song with the same title. The distinction matters, because Mundy’s version belongs to a specific Irish musical tradition, while Sheeran’s is pop. For the purposes of this list and for the purposes of any serious Irish music discussion, Mundy’s recording is the one that counts.

Fun Facts: Irish Rock Songs

With or Without You — U2

Infinite sustain: The Edge used a custom-built Infinite Guitar to create the sustained note that runs beneath the entire song, a technique that had never been used in a major rock recording before.

Sunday Bloody Sunday — U2

White flag moment: Bono began waving a white flag during live performances of this song to emphasize its anti-war rather than pro-Republican message, after some audiences misread its politics.

Zombie — The Cranberries

First billion: “Zombie” became the first Irish song to reach one billion views on YouTube, hitting that milestone in 2019 — twenty-five years after its release.

Linger — The Cranberries

Teenage masterpiece: Dolores O’Riordan co-wrote “Linger” at the age of nineteen, making it one of the finest debut songwriting efforts by any Irish rock artist.

The Boys Are Back in Town — Thin Lizzy

Fictional town: Despite the song’s vivid storytelling, the “boys” and the town they return to are entirely fictional — Phil Lynott invented every detail to create a universally relatable narrative.

Whiskey in the Jar — Thin Lizzy

Grammy by proxy: Thin Lizzy never won a Grammy, but Metallica’s cover of their arrangement won Best Hard Rock Performance in 1999, a backhanded tribute to how definitive the original really was.

Nothing Compares 2 U — Sinéad O’Connor

Prince’s reaction: Prince reportedly did not initially like Sinéad’s recording, feeling it was too minimalist, but the song’s massive success later changed his perspective on the arrangement.

Black Is the Colour — In Tua Nua

U2 connection: In Tua Nua’s Steve Wickham had already played violin on U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” before this recording, making him one of the most important session players in Irish rock history.

When the Stars Go Blue — The Frames

Ryan Adams boost: Ryan Adams covered this song in 2001 on his album Gold, which introduced The Frames’ songwriting to an American audience that had largely missed them the first time around.

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For — U2

Gospel roots: The song was heavily influenced by the gospel music Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. encountered while traveling in America, and the choir arrangement was added late in the recording process.

Galway Girl — Mundy

Not Sheeran: Despite the widespread confusion, Mundy’s “Galway Girl” and Ed Sheeran’s 2017 hit of the same name are entirely different songs — same title, completely different music, different stories.

These songs have given me some of the best moments of my career, and I hope diving into the stories behind them gives you a deeper connection to the music. Irish rock is a living tradition, and every one of these tracks is a chapter in a story that’s still being written. — TBone

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most popular Irish rock song of all time?

By any measurable metric — streaming numbers, chart performance, cultural reach — U2’s “With or Without You” holds the title. It was the first U2 song to reach number one in America, has been streamed nearly a billion times on Spotify, and remains one of the most recognizable rock songs in the world. That said, The Cranberries’ “Zombie” has the most YouTube views of any Irish rock song, having crossed one billion, so the answer depends slightly on how you define “popular.”

What makes a great Irish rock song?

The best Irish rock songs share a quality that’s hard to define but instantly recognizable — an emotional directness that comes from the Irish storytelling tradition, combined with the energy and urgency of rock music. There’s usually a tension between the personal and the political, between joy and grief, that gives the songs their particular weight. The best of them feel like they were written by people who had something genuinely important to say and found the perfect musical vehicle to say it.

Where can I listen to Irish rock music?

All eleven songs on this list are available on Spotify and Apple Music, and most have official music videos on YouTube. For deeper exploration, I’d recommend searching for curated Irish rock playlists on Spotify, or checking out BBC Radio Ulster and RTE Radio 1, which both program significant amounts of Irish rock. If you ever get the chance to attend a live event in Dublin — particularly at venues like Vicar Street or the 3Arena — the experience of hearing this music in its home city is something I’d recommend to any music lover.

Who are the most famous Irish rock artists?

U2 are undisputably the most commercially successful Irish rock band in history, with a catalogue of number-one albums and singles spanning five decades. Thin Lizzy, led by the irreplaceable Phil Lynott, were the founding fathers of Irish hard rock in the 1970s, and The Cranberries brought Irish alternative rock to a global audience in the 1990s. Beyond those three landmarks, Sinéad O’Connor, The Frames, Rory Gallagher, My Bloody Valentine, and Fontaines D.C. represent the extraordinary breadth and depth of what Irish rock has produced.

Is Irish rock music popular outside Ireland?

Enormously so. U2 are one of the best-selling music artists of all time worldwide, and The Cranberries’ “Zombie” has over a billion YouTube views from listeners across every continent. The Irish diaspora — particularly in the United States, the UK, and Australia — has always been a passionate audience for Irish rock, but the music long ago transcended ethnic identity to become genuinely universal. More recently, bands like Fontaines D.C. and Inhaler are carrying Irish rock into new international markets, proving that the tradition is very much alive and still capable of producing world-class music.