12/05/2026
The legendary Mary Coughlan comes to Peacocks, Swords on June 12! Tickets on sale now šµ
Mary is Irelandās greatest jazz and blues singer and āone of our most openly raw performersā (Hotpress). In a career fast approaching its 40th year, she is about to enter its next, exciting stage.
Born in Shantalla, Galway city, Mary has made some of the most uncompromising, wholly personal, and universal music by any Irish artist. While her roots are in jazz and blues - Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith are among her inspirations - pop, rock, folk, and chanson (Edith Piaf is also a touchstone) influences also appear in her work. Now, the next chapter of her distinguished career finds her exploring a little known side of the music of Peggy Lee.
To hear Mary sing, is, as Velvet Thunder said, āto be at the core of the human heartā. It was a voice which first came to wide attention in 1985, when Mary burst onto the Irish music scene with her debut album, Tired and Emotional. That album led to appearances on The Late Late Show, a hit single with āDelaneyās Gone Back On The Wineā, and tours of Britain, Germany, and Holland.
She followed that explosive release with Under The Influence (1987), Uncertain Pleasures (1990), and Sentimental Killer (1992), which firmly established her reputation as an unflinchingly honest, emotionally raw vocalist, never afraid to embrace the most difficult of subject matter in her work.
As The Irish News said, she ādoesnāt just take her audiences to church with her music, she practically baptises them with her passion and painā.
To cap it all, in 2020, Mary was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the then Mayor of Galway, Mike Cubbard.
Now you can see Mary, to mark her oncoming fifth decade in music, live in an intimate venue, Peacockās of Swords.
