Looking ahead to CMAT's 2026 festival season: "What a rise it has been"

It says something for the rarefied place in which Irish music finds itself at the moment that the two biggest stories coming out of Glastonbury last year involved artists from these shores. The first was obviously Kneecap, who sent Daily Mail Britain into meltdown by having their audience chant rudely about Keir Starmer.

But the other winner of the weekend was Dunboyne, Co. Meath, megastar Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, aka CMAT, whose Friday performance thoroughly overshadowed later turns across the weekend by Charli XCX, Neil Young, Olivia Rodrigo and others.

That CMAT is a natural-born festival headliner was confirmed all over again later that summer, when she put in another barnstormer at All Together Now in Waterford. That in turn was followed by a cameo at an institution even more hallowed than Glastonbury – the Late Late Toy Show, where she popped up having dashed straight off stage at 3Arena. It was a year of triumphs – one that  has set her up for an even bigger 2026, where she will play at both St Anne’s Park in Dublin and then headline Electric Picnic.

What a rise it has been for an artist whose songwriting combines a heartfelt love for country music, a wry eye for the absurdities of everyday life, a love for the weird side of small-town Ireland and a flair for supremely catchy pop. It is a story with some unexpected cameos, too – from long-time supporter Marty Whelan, to fanboy John Grant and one-off mentor Charli XCX, who dispensed some invaluable life advice to Thompson at a songwriting workshop several years ago.

At the time, Thompson was in Manchester, fresh from an unhappy break-up and the consequent falling apart of the indie band she had fronted with her ex, Bad Sea.

“She [Charli] was like, ‘You need to sort yourself out… You seem like you’re really good at music. But you don’t know what you’re doing right now. You need to figure that out. You need to move back home, or you need to move to London. Why would you stay in Manchester? You don’t know anyone there.’ I was getting the bus back to Manchester,” she said in 2022.

“And I was like, ‘I have to go home… I have to go home.’ It was immediate. I have to blow my life up because Charli XCX told me to. It was the best thing I ever did. It was the best advice I ever received.”

Home she went, and so was born CMAT – an outlet for songs full of wit, warmth and absurdity, yet ultimately informed by a desire to connect with her audience. You can hear that her 2023 breakout Crazymad, For Me and its follow-up Euro-Country, where seemingly offhand pronouncements are revealed, with deeper examination, to have a profound undertow.

A case in point is the single ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’. Apparently, Oliver’s face is ubiquitous in motorway services across the UK and, as Thompson travelled the byways with her band, she came to develop an illogical loathing of his pukka mug.

But the tune is also about the absurdity of randomly disliking someone just because their mug is staring out at you every time you pop in for a breakfast roll. A seemingly throwaway song is actually a meditation on the dangers of hating strangers and what that toxicity can do to a person.

Her flair for blending the personal and the political was deployed to even more striking effect on Euro-Country’s title track and its instantly iconic video, in which CMAT dances in the fountain of Omni Park Shopping Centre in Santry, Dublin. One of the first songs to chronicle the devastating fallout of the Celtic Tiger – the tragic background noise of CMAT’s childhood – it was a moving and catchy unpacking of the financial trauma an entire country suffered through, yet which we never speak about.

Elsewhere, the singer has also spoken about the need to stay grounded. To appreciate that, for all the acclaim, she is still an outsider from Dunboyne who has achieved all she has in music the hard way – and without a leg-up from anyone.

“There’s a lot of musicians and songwriters who, as soon as they ascend into being professional, elect to lead the life of someone in the upper classes, of a celebrity or a very important person. I can’t do that,” she told a UK magazine. “I find it incredibly boring and it’s not helpful for my music. I’m not making the next big pop song in [UK luvvy hangout] Soho House. I’m going to the pub.”

Twelve months on, Euro-Country is an acknowledged Irish pop classic, and with a summer of outdoor concerts to come, CMAT has the chance to write her name up in lights all over again. Who would bet against her?

CMAT plays St. Anne’s Park, Dublin, on May 30; Musgrave Park, Cork, on June 20; and Electric Picnic on August 28-30.

She also supports Lewis Capaldi at Marlay Park, Dublin (June 23 & 24); and Thomond Park, Limerick (June 26).