Ireland Music Week has just announced the fifty acts that will be performing as part of this year’s event in Dublin on 1–5 October. The music festival and conference, formerly known as Hard Working Class Heroes, will feature a showcase of concerts across the Grand Social, Lost Lane, the Button Factory and the Workman’s Club.

After a call for submissions in May, over 500 artists applied to participate. 

Included in the programme are Belfast dream-pop trio Beauty Sleep, who released their debut album Be Kind in May, and Dublin rock six-piece Thumper, who were described in a Journal of Music review earlier this year as an ‘incredibly tight iteration of hard pop rock.’

Traditional music group Moxie will also perform as well as Kerry singer and guitarist Junior Brother (reviewed in our piece on It Takes a Village), Galway singer Maija Sofia and electronic act Kyoto Love Hotel, led by singer Laura Sheary. 

Multi-instrumentalist Kitt Phillipa returns to the festival this year, as well as Belfast rock quintet New Pagans, alt-rock duo Pearly and pop trio True Tides. 

Angela Dorgan, CEO of First Music Contact, commented on the programme announcement: 

Year on year, our judges remark on the quality of Irish bands in a global and not just local context. That is beyond encouraging to hear especially for all those who applied as well as the fifty who will showcase in October.

See the full line-up below. For more information, visit: www.irelandmusicweek.com/  

Full festival line up:

Ailbhe Reddy
Alex Gough
April
Autre Monde
Badhands
Basciville
Beauty Sleep
Callum Orr
Caoilian Sherlock
CYNEMA
Conchur White
Delush
DemiGosh
Elaine Malone
ELKAE
ELKIN
ELM
GROSS NET
Happyalone
Jamie Adam
Junior Brother
JyellowL
Kitt Philippa
Kyoto Love Hotel
Laura Elizabeth Hughes
Lilac
Local Boy
Lydia Ford
Maija Sofia
Mango X MathMan
Marcus Woods
Meghan Murray
MELTS
MOXIE
New Pagans
Pearly
People Club
Postcard Versions
Robert John Ardiff
RUNAH
Rushes
Sinead O’ Brien
Somebody’s Child
Sun Mahshene
Super Silly
Tebi Rex
THUMPER      
TOUTS
True Tides
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