Dublin has always overperformed, musically speaking, for such a relatively small city. From Westlife and The Script to The Boomtown Rats and, of course, U2, the Irish capital has spawned numerous artists who’ve enjoyed award-winning, chart-topping success. Yet in recent times, it’s also become something of a hotbed for alternative music.   

Fontaines D.C., Inhaler, and Gilla Band

Formed at the Dublin campus of the BIMM University, Fontaines D.C. are leading the charge. They’ve been nominated for three Grammys, awarded Best International Group at the 2023 BRITs, and achieved a UK number one with third LP Skinty Fia. And even though they’ve since moved out of Dublin City, (what the DC stands for) they’ve never lost sense of their roots.  

Featuring tracks titled “Dublin City Sky” and “Liberty Belle” – the latter a reference to their neighborhood at the time – their 2019 debut Dogrel was named after a form of Irish working-class poetry. The opening track “Big” even begins with the statement: “Dublin in the rain is mine.” They’ve also continued to rally against the city’s capitalist nature and eradication of Irish culture on the likes of 2020’s A Hero’s Death and 2024’s Romance, whose No.97 entry on the Billboard 200 offered further proof the scene is expanding its reach.  

In fact, the five-piece, whose video for recent single “Bug” featured one of Dublin’s hottest acting exports Barry Keoghan, currently places at No.9 on Chartmetric’s all-time Ireland Artists Ranking. Furthermore, they’ve amassed 4.56 million monthly Spotify listeners, with both “I Love You” and “Starburster” accruing more than 50 million plays.

The only act likely to threaten their top-dog status is one with a familial connection to Irish hero Bono. Fronted by the U2 star’s son Elijah Hewson, Inhaler have quelled all the “nepo baby” accusations thanks to three albums’ worth of rousing indie-rock which prove the four-piece are masterful songwriters in their own right.

The group’s leading track, “My Honest Face,” is quickly catching up to Fontaines D.C.’s breakout hits as the scene’s defining anthem, racking up 42 million Spotify plays since its 2021 release. They also boast a higher fan conversion rate (29.22 to 20.8) and with a gap of just over 3,000 to close, they will likely soon overtake their fellow Dubliners’ amount of TikTok followers, too. Interestingly, while the majority of their local rock scene’s audience skewers male and the 25-34 age group, Inhaler’s is 60 percent female and a more youthful 18-24.

As titles such as “Cheer Up Baby,” “Love Will Get You There,” and “Just To Keep You Satisfied” – all of which have graced Billboard’s alternative charts – would suggest, Inhaler’s lyrical themes are indeed a little more universal. However, songs such as “Dublin in Ecstasy” show how they’re still resolutely proud of their heritage. “Even though we don’t all get to hang out, there’s a great sense of camaraderie and rooting for each other,” Hewson has claimed about his hometown’s burgeoning cultural presence.   

So where did this new-found vigor come from? Well, Gilla Band (formerly Girl Band) are often credited as the year zero. Formed in 2011 to counteract the Radiohead knockoffs apparently swarming the city at the time, the Rough Trade signing has become renowned for their deconstruction of the traditional guitar band set-up, lurching from industrial and techno to no-wave and noise rock, often within the same song.  

While Gilla Band boast more Spotify monthly listeners across the other side of the Atlantic than they do in both their homeland and the neighboring UK combined, Dublin still remains their top city by Spotify listener concentration. And their overall rising figures correlate with Fontaines D.C.'s, leaping from 12.5k listeners in 2018 to a high of 135.6k in 2022. Furthermore, the fact they’ve raked in 58.74m YouTube channel views, half of which were accrued during the same time frame, is more evidence of how the quartet are connecting on a wider scale.

Dublin’s Rising Protest Music Scene

“Ten years ago, it felt like there was nothing going on, but now there’s amazing music coming from every corner of the city.” remarked Gurriers frontman Dan Hoff about this new wave. His five-piece is one of its more raucous offspring, combining a cathartic blend of shoegaze, post-punk, and noise rock that’s drawn comparisons with fellow pioneering Dublin natives My Bloody Valentine. But while the lockdown-formed band are happy to celebrate their hometown, they’re also unafraid to highlight its social and political problems.  

Indeed, the homelessness crisis, high levels of emigration, and rise of the Irish far-right are just a few of the thorny issues tackled on their fast and furious debut album Come and See (2024). It’s an urgent approach which has been adopted by many of their peers, too, suggesting that Dublin’s problems have galvanized a new breed of protest musicians into action   

The Murder Capital, for example, have addressed everything from the lack of mental health resources to gentrification across three albums of potent post-punk, including the 17 tracks which have reached the one-million Spotify play mark. “We just wanna talk about it as much as possible, and make sure that the government knows that we're not happy with the standard of where it's at,” explained lead singer James McGovern. And the Spotify generation appeared to have signed up to their cause, resulting in a spike of 322k monthly listeners in 2022.   

Electronic, Folk, and Other Sounds Leading the Revival

It’s not just in the guitar arena where Dublin is thriving, though. As shown on Spotify playlists such as Alternative Ireland and the brilliantly-titled A Breath of Fresh Éire, which has an impressive 78k followers, the modern scene has also spawned rapper Kojaque, singer-songwriter Dermot Kennedy, and musical poet For Those I Love. The latter’s self-titled debut, a powerful meditation on grief set to clubland beats, also exemplifies how the city is now embracing the world of electronica.  

Spearheaded by DJ EMA, the club night known as Woozy is quickly becoming one of the hottest on the European circuit thanks to its forward-thinking blend of DnB, dubstep, and various other bass-heavy sounds. Its same-named label has launched local talents such as Sputnik One.   

EMA, also a member of the Give Us the Night initiative designed to revolutionize nightlife laws, grew up in Dublin but disillusioned with its music scene, relocated to Berlin in her twenties. On learning just how much things have progressed in recent years, though, she eventually felt compelled to come home. “What holds everyone together is this crazy sense of community,” she explained. “There's a different buzz here. If you've got a busy night and a buzzy crowd, you can't match it."  

Dubliner Daniel McIntyre, who records under the guise of Lullahush, also spent some time immersing himself in the Berlin scene before returning to fuse what he’d learned with sounds closer to home. After impressing with his 2022 debut A City Made of Water and Small Love, the Ivor Novello Rising Star nominee drops his follow-up Ithaca this spring, an audacious sonic odyssey that further bridges the wide gap between contemporary dance music and Irish traditions.   

Ithaca must surely be one of the only electronic albums to contain a nonagenarian (McIntyre’s 97-year-old uncle) performing a rendition of Patrick Kavanagh poem “Raglan Road.” Other curveballs include the tin whistle melody of folk classic “The Rare Auld Mountain Dew,” breakbeats recorded on the bodhran, and the funeral vocal style known as keening given the deconstructed techno treatment.

“I first thought about it when I heard a story about a priest who had transcribed keening melodies for organ,” McIntyre told Chartmetric about his cultural influences. “It made me think about audio to midi.” The multi-instrumentalist,  who cited busking beatmakers Acid Granny as his hometown’s ultimate saviors, also acknowledged the complexities of his hometown scene. “There are amazing things happening in Dublin, made all the more amazing by how difficult the city has become to live in.” 

Lullahush isn’t the only Dublin native busy pushing the boundaries of folk, though. John Francis Flynn, for instance, has received rave reviews for melding Irish reels such as “Kitty” and “Within a Mile of Dublin” with loops, synths, and white noise. “People’s idea of Irishness is so warped,” the Skipper’s Alley member explained about his attempts to steer audiences away from the usual caricatures. “A friend told me that it’s like taking a walk through Dublin, feeling the energy in the city,” he added about 2023 sophomore Look Over the Wall, See the Sky.   

Then there’s Lankum, who’ve been toiling away on the alternative folk circuit since the early ‘00s, but have only recently started attracting wider attention. 2023's False Lankum picked up a coveted Mercury Prize nod for embracing psychedelia, slowcore, and drone music in their speaker-shaking walls of noise. No doubt buoyed by appearances on Spotify playlists St. Patrick’s Day (111k followers) and one of the most popular Halloween alternatives, Spooky (451k), the four-piece now have 85k followers to their murder ballad-inspired name. 

Dublin, therefore, no longer has a default sound. It’s now just as likely to produce a socially-conscious hip-hop star as it is a stadium rock act. Yet it’s this eclecticism, not to mention the sense of unity and sheer force of energy, that’s transformed the city into one of Europe’s most exciting creative hubs.