The Mary Wallopers have announced two Ireland arena shows for this Christmas. Find all the details below.
- READ MORE: The Mary Wallopers: “There needs to be a voice that’s giving the rowdy side of folk back to people”
The Irish folk group, based in Dundalk, County Louth, will take to the stage at Belfast’s SSE Arena on December 23, before heading to the Gleneagle Arena in Killarney on December 30.
“Howiya Ireland! We’re coming to Belfast and Killarney for two massive Christmas shows this December!” the band wrote when sharing details of the upcoming dates this morning (September 9).
Tickets go on general sale at 10am BST this Friday (September 12) – you’ll be able to buy yours here. Alternatively, fans can access a pre-sale at the same time tomorrow (Wednesday September 10) by signing up here.
You can see the announcement post here:
The Mary Wallopers’ pair of festive gigs in Ireland will follow their ‘Five-Night Stand’ residency at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom in the lead-up to Christmas 2025. They’ll headline the legendary venue on December 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21.
The forthcoming gigs follow the band’s run of dates at Vicar Street in Dublin last December, as part of their ‘Seven Drunken Nights’ Christmas tour across Ireland.
The Mary Wallopers’ UK/Ireland tour dates for 2025 are:
DECEMBER
17 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
18 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
19 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
20 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
21 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
23 – SSE Arena, Belfast (new date)
30 – Gleneagle Arena, Killarney (new date)
The group recently recalled their set at this summer’s Victorious Festival 2025, writing: “Jaysus that was some weekend.” They had their slot cut short at the event after calling for a “free Palestine”, saying “fuck Israel”, and displaying the Palestine flag.
Writing online after the show, The Mary Wallopers told fans: “Just got cut off at Victorious Festival for having a Palestinian flag on the stage. We’ve been doing this for six years now and this has never happened before. Free Palestine all day every day.”
Vampire Weekend expressed their support for the band during their headline set at Victorious the following evening. “If someone was punished for flying a flag, that is wrong and they deserve an apology,” said frontman Ezra Koenig. “The terrible suffering of the Palestinian people deserves all of our sympathy.”
The Murder Capital spoke out on the controversial decision, too. Acts such as The Last Dinner Party, The Academic, Cliffords and Esme Emerson decided to boycott Victorious ’25 after it pulled the plug on The Mary Wallopers.
Victorious told NME that “although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song. The decision by the event management to cut the sound and end the performance was only taken after the band used a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context.”
The Mary Wallopers are currently on tour in Australia, and are said to be at work on their third studio album. A recent press release confirmed that more information on the project would be “coming soon”. Their second full-length record, ‘Irish Rock N Roll’, was released in 2023.
The band’s latest single, ‘The Juice’, arrived in July. They shared a three-track EP titled ‘Home Boys Home’ last summer.
Speaking to NME last year, The Mary Wallopers’ Andrew Hendy explained that “there needs to be a voice that’s giving the rowdy side of folk back to people”.
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