Cliffords are a newly-emerging Irish band from Cork who may just be the next Cranberries. With a similar alt-rock style to the aforementioned Irish powerhouses, the band’s lineup consists of Iona Lynch (vocals/guitar), Gavin Dawkins (bass/trumpet), Harry Menton (lead guitar), and Locon O’Toole (keys). Speaking to Iona, she discussed cutting their teeth in Ireland, their explosion in popularity, and her perspective on Ireland’s cultural renaissance.

As she rightly mentioned, Cliffords had been around for a couple years now, with the band really grinding into motion back in 2022 with a University College Cork battle of the bands win. ‘I think from a UK perspective, it certainly seems like we’ve come out of nowhere almost overnight. But we’ve been going as a band for two or three years – we’ve been gigging pretty consistently around Ireland, so for us it didn’t feel brand new.’

With that being said, Iona mentioned that Cliffords was never made with the intention of “making it big”, and instead started as a fun pastime with friends: ‘It started off as a fun thing! I’ve been in Cliffords since I was 16, and we were just playing in a garage doing covers. We started taking it a bit more seriously about a year ago, and pretty instantly we met our manager, we started booking shows – I think it was just something we weren’t really expecting. We always believed in ourselves, and we thought it could happen, but none of us thought it would happen that quickly.’

Iona wasn’t wrong about their meteoric rise – UK perspective aside, they’ve had some massive support slots with bands like Kings of Leon, and Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA), plus a Glastonbury set – all in the space of a year. QOTSA in particular was a very last minute job: ‘It was wild! We got the call four days before because Amyl and the Sniffers pulled out, so we were the backup – very happy backup as well! Glastonbury was massive – I cried on stage, I was so overwhelmed.’

‘There was another festival we played called Best Kept Secret in the Netherlands, and I just remember coming out in this barn kind-of thing: it was completely full. I really couldn’t comprehend that we were in the Netherlands – a country we’ve not really played in before – and there would be hundreds of people there that all knew the songs, and the songs meant something to every one of them.’

‘We had a similar thing happen in Australia – we did an Irish festival for Paddy’s Day with Dermot Kennedy, so as we were down there we put on two headline shows. Bear in mind, this was before we’d done an Irish or UK tour, and I thought no one was going to come, but turns out we have fans down there which is just wild. I find it quite funny because we have so many Cork-centric songs that contain inside jokes and street names, and I’ll be in the Netherlands and this Dutch girl is screaming lyrics about a street I grew up on. It means something to them – completely different than what it means to me – but it’s so surreal.’

If you know Ireland, you’ll know they are famous for their stout. Out of the three largest breweries – Guinness, Beamish, and Murphy’s – Beamish have started a bursary scheme for up-and-coming Irish artists called the Beamish Breakthrough Bursary, which aims to provide artists with opportunities, funding, and industry contacts to help new artists come onto the scene with more external support designed to help them thrive. The first beneficiaries of this scheme are Cliffords, who were more than keen to partner with Beamish. ‘Genuinely when I say it’s like a dream come true for us – we’ve been such a caricature of loving Beamish for so long – I’ve hand-embroidered a top that says “Beamish Brat” on it – it’s like we manifested it. When we found out Beamish were going to sponsor us for some demos that we’re using to do the tour this November. It’s great to see people and companies come together to support Irish music and try and help out.’

‘We went up to Black Mountain Studios in Dundalk: we did some writing, they took us to the pub, we drank lots of Beamish. They drove up and delivered about 100 cans of Beamish, but all of us were really sick, so no one wanted to drink! We felt guilty that they’d driven up with all this drink, so we slowly slogged our way through all of it, just very poorly.’

It wouldn’t be an interview with an Irish band without asking for their opinion on their cultural renaissance. ‘We’ve always been this good! No, I get asked this question all the time – to be fair it is quite impressive; we’re an island of only five million people. We’ve always had a culture of storytelling, music is a big part of our culture as well. Irish culture has a real emphasis on community – we’ve got the GAA, our sports is hugely important, you’ve got trad bands in local pubs. There are so many legacy acts we can look up to: Sinéad O’Connor, Rory Gallagher, The Cranberries. Within that, in cities, towns and local spaces everywhere, there’s always music going on – Cork especially has such a vibrant scene.’

‘But I think when you don’t think about the music industry, when you don’t think it’s going to come to you or happen for you, then its not really something you worry about, and you can kind of do whatever you want. Not worrying about the wider scale of things and just being artists, eventually, that kind of works – it’ll come to you one day. We do have a similar problem to the UK where small venues are closing, and we wouldn’t have the same number compared to the UK to begin with, but I’ve seen so many legacy venues close in the UK, and that really effects bands. For us, we played the same venue in Cork about a hundred times, and they kind of made us, because they helped us learn to fail. If you don’t have that place for people at the start, they’ll never make it on a bigger stage because they don’t know what they’re going to be like up there. Having a space to try different things on a smaller scale is so important, and is definitely what helped us as a performers.’

Cliffords are performing at Mama Roux’s in Birmingham on November 6th, and you can find tickets here.

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