The Best of 2023

In 2023, LANKUM crashed through the boundaries of ‘folk’ to win thousands of new fans. Also in the van: fellow Irish pathfinders LISA O’NEILL and JOHN FRANCIS FLYNN. As they tell JIM WIRTH, the unexpected attention comes with benefits: “The librarian was like: ‘I know who you are.’”

Folk explosion: Lankum (from left) Radie Peat, Ian Lynch, Daragh Lynch and Cormac MacDiarmada take their “droney depressing music” to the masses.

THERE MAY NOT BE A FORTUNE to be made in the vanguard of a wave of Irish artists spinning off traditional music into wilder terrain, but Lankum are finding that the success of their fourth LP, False Lankum, comes with significant side-benefits.

“I just got to skip the queue to get my library card,” says singer Radie Peat as she and bandmates Daragh Lynch and Cormac MacDiarmada meet MOJO in a pub on Dublin’s northside, not far from the converted factory building where the band rehearse.

“The librarian was like: ‘I know who you are, so you don’t need proof of address or ID.’”

“I was in the post office the other day setting up the PO Box for the fucking band,” adds the refreshingly sweary Lynch. “And your man who was behind the counter was like: ‘Oh, yeah, here. I’ll sort that out. Look, go to the top of the next queue. Just ask for me.’”

“If that’s all that ever happens from us making music, just bureaucracy getting easier…” says Peat.

“Happy days,” says McDiarmada. Ellius Grace Airy sweet and bible black, False Lankum’s melding of seafaring songs, gloomy originals, tender ballads and thunderous noise has taken the band of thirty-and-fortysomething multi-instrumentalists to unexpected places.

When they were playing for beer at pub sessions a decade ago, signing on and singing together for fun, it would have been a push for them to imagine that 2023 would find them selling out three nights at Dublin’s 1,500-capacity Vicar Street, where past headliners include Ministry, Bob Dylan and Jedward.