Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers will take to the Glasgow Barrowlands’ stage for a five-night run this December
The Mary Wallopers hold a Palestinian flag as they protest onstage during Day 1 of Victorious Festival on Friday, August 22, 2025 (Image: WireImage)
Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers have announced a five-night run of gigs at an iconic Glasgow venue. The group have been attracting attention of late after a string of bands pulled out of a Portsmouth music festival at the weekend in support of the musicians after they claimed their set was “cut off” for displaying a Palestinian flag.
The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords and The Academic announced on Saturday that they would be pulling their planned performances at Portsmouth’s Victorious Festival after organisers claimed in a statement they’d axed the group’s set because they’d used a “discriminatory chant” as they unfurled the flag.
The Mary Wallopers, who will play the Barrowlands in December, denied the claim and asked for the festival to retract its “misleading” statement as they shared footage to their socials.
Organisers of the event, which was headlines by Kings of Leon and Bloc Party, were then forced to apologise to the group and pledged to make “a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people”.
Other artists, including Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap, singer Nell Mescal and Dropkick Murphys have flooded the musicians with support on Instagram following the furore.
Festival organisers then released an updated statement, as they said: “We didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached.
“This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all concerned.
“We absolutely support the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage, within the law and the inclusive nature of the event. Our policy of not allowing flags of any kind, which has been in place for many years for wider event management and safety reasons, is not meant to compromise that right.
“We accept that, although mics remained live for longer, sound for The Mary Wallopers’ audience was cut as described in the band’s video and that comments after that were not audible to the public.”
On Tuesday, the band took to social media to say they were “buzzing” to announce the December gigs in Glasgow as they admitted they’d had “some weekend”.
Kneecap supported the Irish folk band (Image: Getty Images)
They said: “Jaysus that was some weekend, feels weird to be back to the scheduled programmes but sure look, we’ll keep er lit.
“We are buzzing to announce a five night stand in our fave venue the @barrowland_ballroom in December!
“To celebrate, our new music video for ‘The Juice’ is out now over on our YouTube page! Love ye lots xoxoxo #survivethefive.”
Tickets go on general sale on Friday (August 29) at 10am. Fans can sign up to the group’s mailing list for exclusive presale access from tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10am.
Yesterday, we reported Kneecap were forced to cancelled their US tour this October amid a pending court case as Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, is accused of supporting a proscribed terror organisation for displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig in November.
On Instagram, the group said that they have had to cancel all 15 of the US shows.
They said: “To all our US based fans we have some bad news. Due to the proximity of our next court hearing in London to te first date of the tour, as the British government continues its witch-hunt, we will have to cancel all 15 US tour dates in October.
“With every show fully sold out, to tens of thousands of fans, this news we are sad to deliver. But once we win our court case, which we will, we promise to embark on an even bigger your to all you great heads. Refunds are available at point of purchase.”
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