Whistlin’ Donkeys ready to rock Leopardstown

Top Irish folk band, The Whistlin’ Donkeys are announced as the final act for the Bulmers Live @ Leopardstown series on Thursday, 24th August. 

The Tyrone group will be headlining a ‘Stars and Stripes’ themed-race day as part of a partnership Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and the Aer Lingus College Football Classic (ALCFC).

Irish race day culture will collide with the time-honoured American tradition of tail-gating for an event at Leopardstown on August 24th, and The Whistlin’ Donkeys will be on hand to create a rootin’ tootin’ good time.

The band are known for their unique blend of traditional Irish music and Celtic rock influences, creating their own distinctive sound that will keep people’s (and possibly the horses’ hooves) feet stomping all night long.

Frontman Fergal McAloon said he was looking forward to capping off the event, saying that the group has never played to such a large crowd before.

The band has amassed an unlikely social media following of thousands of people, which McAloon says is a testament to people simply enjoying good music. 

“We started out playing pubs, started filling those pubs, now we’re starting to tour all over the place,” he said.

The Whistlin’ Donkeys have the classic band story: it all started in school.

McAloon attended school with guitarist Stephen Corrigan, and as McAloon puts it “then another lad joined, then another joined, and suddenly we have a band.”

In recent weeks the group have played to a crowd of 3,000 in Wexford and 4,000 at the INEC in Killarney, but the idea of playing up to 40,000 international visitors as part of the Bulmers event at Leopardstown doesn’t seem to phase McAloon. 

“The way I see it, it doesn’t matter if we’re playing a small pub or at a big event like this, the music will always translate no matter the size of the crowd.”

“We’ve played Mandela Hall in Belfast before, and the energy in the room that night was amazing.”

The group’s cult following around Ireland is attributed to old-fashioned word of mouth according to McAloon.

He pointed to one particular song the group plays, Bee’s Wing, as the one track guaranteed to activate a crowd. 

The great struggle for any band is translating that explosive live sound to the studio, and McAloon says there has been a conscious effort to replicate the live experience in the studio.

“Between Covid and everything else we’ve put off going back into the studio, but when we do go to the studio to record we make a point of sounding just like we do live.”

He explained that there was a process involved, such as adding the guitar track before the voice, but when all of the elements combine, it creates the raucous live shows that the band are known for in the conventions of a normal track.

“It’s an organic process,” he said, but one gets the impression being on the stage is where McAloon belongs.

There is an easy-going and laid-back candor to him, which contrasts with the energetic and blood-pumping live shows he puts on. 

“To be fair, I’d still be happy if we were still playing in just small pubs,” he said, but with the prospect of playing in front of a captive audience ready for a good time, he relishes the challenge.

“We’ve played in the States before and our music translates well on that side of the ocean, so hopefully the folks coming over to Ireland for the game will enjoy us is in Dublin!”