- Music
- 24 Dec 25
Live Report: The Mary Wallopers set Belfast reeling!
Over the past few years, they have established themselves as one of Ireland’s most popular new outfits. But, as they demonstrated at Belfast's SSE Arena, there's substance as well as live energy and a raucous sense of fun to The Mary Wallopers’ reimagining of the Irish ballad tradition...
The Mary Wallopers' pre-Christmas concert is becoming something of an annual tradition in Belfast. It’s easy to see why. Their fanbase in the city is fervent, and being at one of their gigs feels like the most joyous and cathartic way to welcome in the silly season.
They took ot the stage after an excellent opening set from fellow Louth outfit, Just Mustard.
The Wallopers have a commanding presence. Charles Hendy stands square to the microphone with a guitar in hand, a menacing grin never leaving his face. Brother Andrew Hendy, with trademark mullet, straddles the banjo like it’s a weapon, as he moves up and down the stage. The rest of the band is tight, locked in to ensure that their folk-based sound – which in theory might be small – can match the big size of the SSE Arena.
The set is based around a series of trad covers dialled up to the most raucous levels. You mightn’t think that Irish folk music presents many opportunities for moshing, but by the band’s fifth song – ‘The Rich Man and the Poor Man’ – audience members are hurling themselves against one another with giddy, ferocious abandon.
For the rest of the set, moshing becomes the rule rather than the exception; with each song, new and wider pits are formed, drinks are flung higher in the air, and crowd surfers crawl above you guided by a sea of hands.
The songs themselves are well chosen. There is the lively drama of ‘The Night The Guards Raided Owenys’, the protest power of ‘The Worker’s Song’, and the well-established crowd favourites in the form of ‘Eileen Og’ and ‘Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice’.
But above all, The Mary Wallopers have the vital skill of brilliantly enveloping clear-sighted social commentary into their music, in a way that is truly affecting. Behind the “Right toorin-arinan/ Right toorin-anay”-ing, and the other raucous forms of chants and mouth music that are an integral part of the band’s armoury, these songs contain righteous anger and address issues like landlordism, immigration, the Catholic Church, and the ongoing injustice being perpetrated against the UK hunger strikers, currently protesting against the proscription of Palestine Action.
Delivered in a communal setting like this, these songs feel like a vehicle for empowering the disempowered. A righteous – and occasionally riotous! – start to the Christmas festivities!
