The Mary Wallopers share new single 'Landlord's Demise'

The Mary Wallopers have shared their new single, 'Landlord's Demise' which will feature on their upcoming album Paddywhackery.

The contemporary Irish folk band from Dundalk posted a snippet of the song on their Instagram page, saying "This is a song for everyone struggling to pay big rents to greedy little landlords."

'Landlord's Demise' is a song about "the fall of empire in Ireland, and an expression of our disdain for the Landlord Class," they said.

The song is based on "a true story about a Manor House falling down around its aristocratic owner and is also inspired by Tom Barry's autobiography Guerilla Days in Ireland. The book talks about how, after endless brutal evictions by the Black and Tans in Cork, the IRA took to burning down three Manor Houses for each eviction carried out by the Black and Tans."

 

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Formed in 2016 by brothers Charles and Andrew Hendy - alongside Sean McKenna, who has since left the band - The Mary Wallopers now have six members and have toured internationally. They will be performing at All Together Now and Electric Picnic as well as their headline show in the 3Arena on December 10.

The folk band released their self-titled debut album The Mary Wallopers in 2022, Irish Rock N Roll in 2023 and Paddywhackery is set to be released on September 18 this year.

Talking about the new album, Andrew and Charles Hendy said "It’s mainly about the fact that people would call us “paddywhackery” because we are too Irish or whatever, but it’s all very fucking hip to be Irish the last couple of years, and maybe that’s performative too, it’s very sincere. If all you do is serious songs, it sterilises everything...People are terrified of being laughed at. If people are going to call us paddywhackery anyway, we might as well just call the album Paddywhackery. So its more of a “fuck you” than anything else. We want to spread like a virus and destroy anyone who thinks they are above The Mary Wallopers."

The band regularly uses the bodhrán and tin whistle alongside powerful lyrics that often protest against the far-right and stand up for the working class. Charles Hendy described their previously released single 'Crowns of England' as a song "about being in England and feeling like an outsider in all that colonialism. And it’s about Irish people who move to London and then assimilate by trying to get away from being Irish. That outsider status could apply to immigrants generally, or even people from small towns moving into cities."

Although 'Landlord's Demise' initially appears to be addressing the past -"He hadn't got a shilling now to fill his little hand, he hadn't got a maid or cook or Paddy to command," the last verse heavily references the current housing crisis.

"The song it is now history, I wish that I could say, but greedy dirty landlords never really went away."

Tickets to the Mary Wallopers' 3Arena concert  are available here.