12 Interviews of Christmas – Orla Gartland: "It’s an Irish thing – we just can’t own our successes. But I’m trying to get better at it…”

Originally published in Hot Press in August 2025:

Orla Gartland’s Ivor Novello award takes pride of place on her mantelpiece – but not, she’s quick to tell me, “in an earnest way.”

“I’ve had to put a little scarf on it,” she laughs. “I haven’t been able to display it in a serious way! I think it’s an Irish thing – we just can’t own our successes. But I’m trying to get better at it…”

For songwriters, successes don’t come much bigger, or more prestigious, than winning Best Song Musically and Lyrically at The Ivors – an honour that’s previously gone to classics like The Beatles’ ‘She’s Leaving Home’, Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, Pulp’s ‘Common People’, The Waterboys’ ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, and Hozier’s ‘Take Me To Church’. Back in May, Orla was announced as the latest worthy winner in that line-up, for her track ‘Mine’, taken from her bold yet brilliantly vulnerable second album, Everybody Needs A Hero.

“That’s definitely been a highlight of the year – if not the life,” the Dublin-born, London-based artist reflects. “I was going into it as the underdog. I was so delighted to be nominated, but I was so sure that I wasn’t going to get it. My parents wanted to come along just to see the fanfare of it all – and for the three-course dinner!

“Then when I won… The sequence from my name getting called out, to going up for a speech that I really wasn’t expecting to make, and everything that came after… It was the closest to a film that I’ve ever experienced.”

Securing the prize as an independent artist was particularly special to Orla. Initially building up her own organic fanbase through videos uploaded online, she released 2024’s Everybody Needs A Hero and her debut, 2021’s Woman On The Internet – both of which scored Choice Prize nominations – through her own New Friends label.

“Being an artist nowadays – and particularly an independent one – it’s like a marathon, not a sprint,” she remarks. “It takes so long. You hope things are going upwards, but you can’t actually really tell, because the metrics by which success is measured are always different. One day you’re meant to be focused on how many followers you have. Then it’s how many tickets you can shift. And then it’s how many monthly listeners you have.

“So it’s really hard to zoom out, and get any perspective on where you are now, versus two years ago,” she continues. “Not that it’s all about awards or industry recognition – but moments like that are really encouraging. So much of this job is honestly so brutal that you need moments like that, just as a little pat on the back. Like, ‘Okay, you’re on the right track here. Keep it up.’ That balances out the doubt a little bit.”

In another 2025 highlight, this summer saw Orla bring her big-hearted, and increasingly gritty, alt-pop sound to Glastonbury, for a set on the Field of Avalon stage.

“It was amazing,” she enthuses. “It’s such a great showcase of so much Irish talent as well. I saw CMAT play the Pyramid Stage a couple of hours before I was on, and it was so inspiring. And then KNEECAP shut down the West Holts stage. The whole section shut down, because there was so much demand.

“It’s a big place, with loads of different people you can see – but at those bigger festivals, I’m always looking out for: ‘Who are the other Irish people, and what are they doing?’” she adds. “To me, it feels like we’re all showing up as part of the same team.”

 

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Orla was also one of many artists at Glastonbury to voice her support for Palestine during her set.

“I was personally really let down by the media coverage of the whole weekend – because it seemed to focus on a couple of acts, and made it out like they were an isolated case,” she reflects. “What so much of that coverage failed to mention was, first of all, how many acts spoke about it. I can’t count how many acts I saw, and I feel like almost everyone made some kind of reference to it.

“And also, maybe more importantly, the support in the crowd,” she continues. “There were so many Palestine flags, and so much hunger for it. People weren’t just putting up with acts talking about it – they wanted to hear it. No one wanted to bury their head in the sand, and pretend that wasn’t happening. It felt like a real point of dialogue, across the whole weekend.”

As an artist firmly engaged with the world around her, she also acknowledges that these are “weird times” to be touring in the US.

“It’s something I’ve thought a lot about,” she notes. “I’m about to head out there, which will be my third or fourth time out there in the last year. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a really long time – I just didn’t expect the whole place to be on fire, necessarily!

“Touring there in the past year, I definitely had moments of feeling a bit silly,” she continues. “Like, ‘Is this really what people need right now? Are my silly pop songs really the answer?’ And, in short, no – they’re not the answer to the wider problems. But I do think that people really appreciate people still going out there. People over there need escapism and community, more than ever. They need to be in rooms of good people, where they feel safe. It’s a very hard time for a lot of groups out there at the moment.”

That sense of community is something the singer-songwriter’s shows have become famed for, on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Although I can’t control who comes to my show – no artist can – I like to think that my crowd are overwhelmingly kind and good to each other,” she says. “People always say, ‘I came on my own, and I made friends in the queue’. And queer people seem to feel really safe at my shows, which is the nicest thing ever. That’s all I ever want.”

After celebrating that connection with her fans at a special 3Olympia homecoming show earlier this year, Orla is now gearing up to make her eagerly awaited return to Ireland later this month, for a set at Electric Picnic 2025.

“This will, by far, be my biggest Irish festival moment ever,” she tells me. “I’m so excited. I’ve done a huge amount of touring in the last year, and it feels like Camp O.G. is well-oiled now. I know I can put a good show on, so to get the opportunity to play Electric Picnic at this time feels totally right.

“Irish crowds are incomparable – they’re the best,” she adds. “And I’ve always loved Electric Picnic, it’s such a good buzz. I’m so glad that Ireland has a big festival like that. The line-up this year is amazing, so I’m going to stick around for as much of it as I can. My family will probably be like, ‘Yeah cool, we’ll come to your set – but we really want to see Chappell Roan!’”

After EP, Orla’s next immediate mission is to get back into the studio, “and try to figure out the next move.”

“Whether it’s an album, I don’t know,” she muses. “It’s all to play for! But the Ivors win has been so encouraging – it makes me want to become a little feral studio hermit again. So I’ll probably disappear for a bit, and do some writing – and live some life to write about…”