"Killeagh" is a song about a village of about 900 people in East Cork, written for a junior hurling team, that became the biggest song in Ireland in 2025. It was written in about 20 minutes. Songs written for a place — for a club, a team, a final — are one of the oldest traditions in Irish music, and this is that tradition happening now, with streaming numbers.
The band behind it is Kingfishr. The song first appeared in December 2024 as the B-side of "Bet On Beauty." Its road to No. 1 started on a hurling pitch.
Written in 20 Minutes for a Junior Hurling Final
Kingfishr's bassist, Eoin "Fitz" Fitzgibbon, comes from Killeagh and played for the village's GAA club for 20 years. In 2024 the Killeagh junior hurlers reached the East Cork final for the first time since 2001. Fitz's former coach, Phillip O'Neill, asked him to write a song if the juniors made the final — a final Fitz thought unlikely, given the 23-year wait.
Fitz wrote it in about 20 minutes. The song names the place plainly: the village, and Glenbower Woods above it. Then came the part no record company could have planned — the first live performance of "Killeagh" was given by the junior hurlers themselves. They sang it, and then they went out and won the final. For readers new to the sport, Davy Holden's video on the 3,000-year-old game of hurling explains what a junior final means to a parish like Killeagh. You can also catch the short version in our Killeagh Short.
From an East Cork Final to No. 1 in Ireland
The song kept climbing through the first half of 2025 and peaked at No. 1 on the Irish Singles Chart on 2 May 2025. It was already four-times platinum in Ireland by May 2025 and had almost reached five-times platinum by June 2026. It kept returning to the top of the chart, spending 17 weeks at No. 1 in all.
IRMA, the Irish Recorded Music Association, named "Killeagh" the most-streamed song in Ireland in 2025. A song about one East Cork village, written for a junior hurling team, out-streamed everything else in the country for a year.
A Modern Addition to the Irish Folk Canon
Songs like this are not new in Ireland — what is new is the scale. Parishes and clubs have always had their songs: written for a final, sung in the pub after, carrying the names of local places and local people. Our post on Four Green Fields covers an earlier generation's anthem of place and colours, and Raglan Road is built on one Dublin street holding a whole life. "Killeagh" works the same way, and emigrants streaming a song about a village of 900 people because it sounds like home are part of the same story.
Two academics at the University of Limerick, Dr Sandra Joyce and Dr Róisín Ní Ghallóglaigh, have said the song's phrasing is typical of Irish traditional music and called it "a modern addition to the Irish folk canon." Like Fisherman's Blues, it is a modern Irish song that walked into the folk repertoire and stayed.
The full chart run, background, and the University of Limerick assessment are laid out at Wikipedia, "Killeagh (song)", and IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation, covered the song's rise and Fitz's 20 years playing for Killeagh GAA.
— hear us play it live (video above).