Lankum
A Dublin folk group of Ian and Daragh Lynch, Radie Peat and Cormac Mac Diarmada, who grew out of the duo Lynched and made False Lankum (2023), a Mercury-shortlisted album that opens with "Go Dig My Grave".
Lynched to Lankum
The group began as the duo Lynched, made up of the brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, whose first album, Where Did We Go Wrong?!, came out in 2003. Ian Lynch returned from London, where he had been busking, and began writing with his brother. They met Radie Peat and Cormac Mac Diarmada through traditional sessions in Dublin, and both joined in 2013. A second album, Cold Old Fire (2014), was part-funded by an Arts Council Ireland recording grant. In October 2016 the band renamed itself Lankum, taking the name from the ballad "False Lankum" as sung by John Reilly, and signed to Rough Trade in 2017.
Between the Earth and Sky (October 27, 2017) was recorded to analogue tape with Julie McLarnon and mixed by John Spud Murphy at Guerrilla Studios in Dublin. The Livelong Day (October 25, 2019), produced with Murphy at The Meadows in Wicklow and at Guerrilla Studios, won the 2019 RTE Choice Music Prize. At the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2018 they won best group and best original song, for "The Granite Gaze".
False Lankum and after
False Lankum, released on March 24, 2023, was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize that year, where Ezra Collective won, and nominated for the Ivor Novello for best album in 2024. It was the number one album of 2023 in the Guardian, The Quietus and Uncut, number three in Mojo, and won the RTE Choice Music Prize and the RTE Folk Award for best folk album. Live in Dublin, from three sold-out nights at Vicar Street on May 29 to 31, 2023, came out on June 21, 2024. A cover of The Specials' "Ghost Town" was released on October 31, 2025, and in March 2026 "Hunting the Wren" with Grian Chatten appeared in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.
The members have side projects: OXN (Radie Peat, John Murphy, Katie Kim and Eleanor Myler), One Leg One Eye and the Fire Draw Near podcast (Ian Lynch), Rue (Peat and Mac Diarmada) and One True Pairing (Mac Diarmada and Murphy with Tom Fleming, on Domino, October 2024). The Irish Times ranked them eighth among the 50 best Irish acts in 2020.
Albums
- False Lankum 2023 · Rough Trade
Twelve tracks, ten of them traditional or covered songs and two originals by Daragh Lynch, with three short fugues.
Songs
- Go Dig My Grave False Lankum · 2023
The opening track of False Lankum, a traditional lament that Radie Peat uncovered through Jean Ritchie's recording.
Sources
- Lankum, Wikipedia
- False Lankum, Wikipedia
- Live in Dublin (Lankum album), Wikipedia
- Lankum, Go Dig My Grave, Nialler9