Junior Brother
Junior Brother at The Star Inn, Guildford
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Junior Brother £17.60
Includes booking fee
About the show
Junior Brother is the moniker of Kerry singer‑songwriter Ronan Kealy, one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from Ireland’s alternative folk underground. Singing in his own unapologetic accent and wielding a percussive, almost feral guitar style, he crafts songs that feel ancient and immediate all at once — part myth, part confession, part fever dream.
Raised in rural Kerry and steeped in the rhythms of Irish storytelling, Junior Brother has carved out a sound that sits far outside the folk mainstream: raw, dissonant, emotionally unguarded, and defiantly original. His debut 'Pull The Right Rope' earned a Choice Prize nomination, while 'The Great Irish Famine' and 'The End' pushed his vision into darker, more experimental territory, cementing him as a singular force in modern Irish music.
His latest album "The End" was nominated for 'RTE Choice Music Prize' Irish album of the year, and came in at #4 in Hotpress Magazine's albums of the year ahead of Florence and the Machine and Lily Allen, and #7 in Time Out London's albums of the year for 2025
Onstage, he’s magnetic — stamping out rhythms with a foot‑tambourine, bending melodies into strange, beautiful shapes, and delivering performances that feel ritualistic, vulnerable, and utterly alive.
Age 18+
Featuring - Junior Brother
An idiosyncratic, challenging and richly lyrical singer/ songwriter, Junior Brother is the pseudonym of Co. Kerry, Ireland singer Ronan Kealy. Chosen as one of RTÉ's Rising Irish Stars of 2018, and as one of The Irish Times' contenders ready to break through in 2019, Junior Brother has built a rabid following thanks to unmissable live shows, and music both excitingly forward-looking and anciently evocative.
His strange stories unfold with reckless abandon upon an idiosyncratic Guitar and Foot Tambourine accompaniment, influenced as much by the avant-garde as music from the middle ages and his home place in rural Ireland.
Junior Brother has been steadily building a fanbase around Ireland and beyond, winning hearts in iconic venues such as Vicar Street (Dublin), The Beacon Theatre (New York), Cork Opera House (Cork), Blackpool Opera House (UK) to name just a few. He has played support for a variety of like-minded acts such as The Proclaimers and Glen Hansard.