BIIRD

A girl band with a banjo

Lisa Canny grew up in the west of Ireland playing harp and banjo, winning seven All-Ireland titles along the way, and she has said the idea behind BIIRD was simple: she wanted to be in a girl band, but the instruments she had were a banjo and a harp. In an interview with IMAGE she said she had carried the concept for nearly thirteen years before it became real, and that it was a reaction to how Irish women had been presented on stage, either in the meringue dresses or in the over-sexualised alternatives.

Canny told HIVE Magazine that the big touring trad productions she saw after Riverdance felt very curated, and that the genuine scene of festival tents and house parties was never what reached global stages. BIIRD was her attempt to put that scene on a stage as it actually is, played by women who had in many cases been playing together since childhood. The Irish Times dates the group's formation to September 2023, when they were invited to play at a literary event.

The public debut came on St Patrick's Day, 17 March 2024, when the eleven-piece played Trafalgar Square in London to a crowd of around ten thousand. Zoran Donohoe, the group's concertina player and a co-founder, has described the reaction to their first styled photoshoot as one of bafflement within the trad world, which was rather the point. From the outset the band has worked with Irish designers and stylists, and describes itself as a collective out to change the perception of trad worldwide.

Who is in the room

The line-up as published by IMAGE runs to eleven players: Lisa Canny on harp, banjo and vocals; Laura Doherty on fiddle and guitar; Zoran Donohoe on concertina; Sal Heneghan on fiddle and harp; Miadhachlughain O'Donnell on flute and vocals; Nicole Lonergan on fiddle; Niamh Hinchy on vocals and synth; Aoife Kelly on cello; Ciara Ní Mhurchú on fiddle; Hannah Hiemstra on drums; and Claire Loughran on fiddle and harp. Wikipedia also lists Aisling Sage as a member. The drum kit and the synthesiser are the two additions Canny admits are not standard session furniture, but which she says are needed to fill a large venue.

Canny and Hinchy also perform as Absolute Lilt, a lilting project released through Heavenly Recordings that has collaborated with Toddla T and Alex Borwick. Lilting, the vocal technique in which the singer mimics an instrument's melody, runs through BIIRD's own sets, and Absolute Lilt material has crossed into BIIRD's stadium repertoire.

Selling out before the first single

The band's first headline run in 2025 sold out on the strength of a Late Late Show appearance and a stack of viral clips. Hot Press reported on 25 February 2025 that the Dublin date, originally booked for the Button Factory on 10 May, had sold out so fast it was moved to Vicar Street on 24 May, with extra tickets released the following morning. A City of Derry Jazz Festival date on 4 May was added at the same time. Hot Press had already put them on its Hot for 2025 list.

The Irish Times sent Niamh Browne to that Vicar Street show and she gave it four stars, describing eleven consummate musicians delivering hair-raising trad to a crowd that was young, stylish and distinctly more urban and hipster than a typical trad audience. She noted the band had drawn over a thousand people to a headline show without a single to their name, and identified the one thing missing: original songs. Three unreleased originals were in the set that night, and Browne's view was that a record could substantially expand their reach.

Festival bookings followed through 2024 and 2025 at Belfast TradFest, Galway International Arts Festival and All Together Now, where Noise11 reports they headlined to fifteen thousand people. According to Wikipedia, a meeting with Ed Sheeran at a pub session during Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Wexford in 2025 led to an invitation to open for him on the Loop Tour in New Zealand, Australia and North America.

The Sheeran year

Noise11 reported on 18 December 2025 that BIIRD would play a Sydney sideshow at the Oxford Art Factory on 28 January 2026 ahead of joining the Australian and New Zealand leg of the Loop Tour. Canny's description of walking out in front of tens of thousands of Sheeran's fans, given to HIVE Magazine, was two words: mental, mad. She said Sheeran has become a mentor figure, and that he gave the band access to Decoy Studios in Suffolk, which Wikipedia records as the venue for debut album recording from May 2026, part-funded by Sheeran himself.

Interviewed by Scottish Music Network on 27 July 2026 ahead of headlining the BBC Introducing stage at TRNSMT, the band said they had just spent ten days at Decoy writing with Paul Brady, Kate Nash, Big Pig, Rena Connolly and Amy Walsh, and that there was plenty of new material in the setlist. Canny had earlier told IMAGE that Sharon Shannon and Kate Nash were confirmed collaborators, describing Nash as having the punk energy needed to be a woman in the industry.

In May 2026 the band were also announced as a support act on Westlife's 25th Anniversary World Tour. The North American run began in late August: setlist.fm records dates at The Great Hall in Toronto on 28 August, Ford Field in Detroit on 29 August, and two nights at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on 4 and 5 September, opening for Sheeran with Lukas Graham and Macklemore also on the bill. Canny told HIVE the full North American tour is thirty-one shows across six weeks, mixing Sheeran dates with the band's own headline rooms.

Old-fashioned on purpose

The refusal to release music is a decision rather than an accident. In the Scottish Music Network interview the band said that after two years of touring without recorded music they were doing things a bit differently, almost old-fashioned. Canny told HIVE there was a philosophical objection to certain streaming platforms, and that they wanted to build the fanbase in rooms before putting anything online. As of that interview the only BIIRD music available was YouTube performance video, including the clip for The Rollover mentioned by IMAGE.

That is changing. Canny said the band would go back into the studio after the North American tour and that a full release was planned by the end of the year. The Irish Times review from May 2025 had already made the case that the songs were the missing piece, and the stadium sets this summer suggest the songs now exist.

What is on sale

Songkick lists the remaining headline dates of the North American run as The Basement in Nashville on 13 September, the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles on 17 September, and two nights at Brick & Mortar Music Hall in San Francisco on 18 and 20 September, following Brighton Music Hall in Boston on 9 September. The one confirmed UK date is a headline show at KOKO in Camden on 21 December 2026, the same room Canny flagged to HIVE as the end-of-year marker. Earlier in the year they had returned to Vicar Street in May and played the Guinness Storehouse on St Patrick's Day 2026.