Carefully pushing the boundaries of what modern Irish folk can look and sound like, Junior Brother is an idiosyncratic, challenging, and richly lyrical singer/songwriter from Co. Kerry. His much-anticipated third album, The End, which was released in September 2025 via Strap Originals, landed in many ‘End of Year’ best album lists, alongside a Choice Music Prize nomination and nods for best Album, best songwriter and best Artist on the annual Hot Press Magazine Music awards 2026. Next week, he embarks on a nationwide tour.
“I can’t wait to take the songs from ‘The End’ around Ireland this May with my band, to beloved venues such as The Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire, Connolly’s of Leap and loads of other legendary rooms.
Befitting the dense sonic palette of this record, different line-ups will appear at different shows, with the penultimate Pavilion Dún Laoghaire show featuring the whole five-piece line-out. Playing this music live with these great musicians has been an incredible journey and immense pleasure each night – These nights are sure to be the best ones yet.” – Junior Brother
‘The End’ has been a defining album for Junior Brother. This week also sees the release of the video single, New Road. Captured in glorious intimacy by filmmaker Myles O’Reilly, this is a live version of the final track on the record:
The End is a deeply instinctive yet carefully considered response to the chaos of modern life, with Junior Brother weaving the recent years of upheaval into the eerie folklore of Fairy Forts. These ring-shaped earth mounds, scattered across the Irish countryside, are known to possess an energy that can bewilder, curse, or even lead the unwary astray. Stepping into one is to risk losing yourself—both physically and spiritually. To Junior Brother, this ancient folklore mirrors the disorienting reality of today’s world.
“The sound of the album is supposed to take the organic instruments of Irish traditional music and lift them somewhere else,” Junior Brother explains, “like the otherworldly Irish music sometimes heard from Fairy Forts at twilight on country roads, impossible to recreate upon hearing.”The End captures this essence, blending the raw textures of traditional Irish music with spectral, unearthly elements.
Much of the album’s inspiration was drawn from UCD’s Folklore Collection on duchas.ie, “I delved into the manuscripts—endless eyewitness accounts of Fairy Forts being stepped into and the land altering, the familiar mutating,” Junior Brother shares. “Farmers, teachers, the sober, the smart—all losing their way home one way or the other.” In these uncanny tales of displacement and confusion, he found striking parallels to the instability and distortion of contemporary life.
Thematically, The End explores forces that work against nature (New Road, Welcome to My Mountain), the rise of the far-right (Small Violence, Today My Uncle Told Me), and confrontations with mortality (Old Bell, Start Digging). Through the lens of rural Irish folklore, the album reflects the bewildering madness of the present moment.
“The title The End represents the moment after being led astray, when the grip of madness releases you and you suddenly see your way home,” says Junior Brother. “It may reflect the doom of a world gone mad, but it also represents the end of darkness, and the start of a new road.”
MAY
6 Ulster Sports Club, Belfast
7 Ulster Sports Club, Belfast
8 The Dock Theatre, Leitrim
15 Phil Grimes, Waterford
16 Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire
21 Mike the Pies, Listowel
22 Connollys, Leap West Cork
JULY
24 Cody Dock, London Festival
25 The Earthship, Stanmer Brighton Festival
AUG
7 Dranouter Festival Belgium
22 Beautiful Days Festival UK
23 Babyshambles support Dublin Vicar St
24 Babyshambles support Belfast
27 Greenbelt Festival UK
SEPT
3 London eARTh Theatre support for Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle
4 End Of The Road Festival
5 Moseley Festival
NOV
6 Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms
7 Nottingham Bodega
8 Liverpool, Kaiser Stockroom
10 Birmingham, Hare and hounds 2
12 Guildford, The Star
13 Ipswich, Smokehouse
14 Ramsgate, Music Hall
18 St Albans The Horn
19 London, Courtyard Studios
20 London, Courtyard Studios
21 Bristol, Louisiana
Tickets for all live shows can be found here