BACK IN JANUARY, Ed Sheeran announced his new album – and Irish people’s interest was piqued when they saw a song called Galway Girl on the track list. What’s this now, Ed?
It later emerged that he had recruited Belfast trad band Beoga to work on two songs for the album, Galway Girl and a bonus track about Wexford.
There was some speculation that the song was a cover of the Mundy/Steve Earle classic – but in January, Ed’s label confirmed to DailyEdge.ie that it was (sadly) an original.
In an interview with The Guardian published yesterday, we learned that Ed had to fight his record label to include it on the album:
But there’s 400m people in the world that say they’re Irish, even if they’re not Irish… And those type of people are going to f**king love it. My argument was always: Well, The Corrs sold 20m records.
Finally, someone is giving The Corrs their due.
Divide was released at midnight last night, and the world finally got to hear Ed’s new Galway Girl – and it is probably more typically ‘Irish’ than 90% of the output of Irish musicians.
Here is a complete list of the Irish things mentioned in the song:
- Fiddles
- Irish bands
- Grafton Street
- The Gaelic (Gaeilge) ink on Ed’s arm
- Jamie (Jameson)
- Arthur (Guinness)
- Johnny (a reference to John Powers, creator of Powers whiskey)
- Van Morrison
- Galway
- Dancing the céili
- Trad tunes
- Carrickfergus
Phew. He’s covered all the bases there.
Galway Girl is not the only trad-tinged song on the album – Nancy Mulligan is about Ed’s granny from Wexford, and wouldn’t sound out of place at a session (it even ends with a roared HAH BOY).
Do you think Ed Sheeran likes Ireland? Can’t tell.
