THE FUREYS will play their last ever concert in County Galway as part of their Farewell Tour in the Town Hall Theatre on Thursday, January 15, 2026.
The Fureys are one of Ireland’s all-time most acclaimed and influential middle-of-the-road, folk and traditional bands. FUREYS classics such as ‘I Will Love You’, ‘When You Were Sweet 16’, ‘Red Rose Café’, ‘Leaving Nancy’, ‘The Old Man’, ‘From Clare to Here’, ‘Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway’, and ‘The Green Fields of France’ have become the soundtrack to the lives of fans all over the world.
The oldest of the brothers, Eddie Furey, left home in 1966 and travelled to Scotland at the time of the great folk revival, where, with his brother Finbar, he met and shared accommodation with then unknown folk singers Billy Connolly, Gerry Rafferty, Tam Harvey and Alex Campbell, now all famous in their own right.
They are particularly proud of their UK chart success with songs such as ‘I Will Love You’ and ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’, which in turn helped bring Irish folk and traditional music to a completely new audience. The band made their Top of the Pops debut in 1981.
Eddie Furey recalls, “Many musicians have told us we influenced them after hearing a record from their parents’ or grandparents’ collection.” Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics has credited Eddie with teaching him his first chords on the guitar while still a teenager. Eddie would return the compliment by joining Dave on stage in Paris for a jam during the latter’s wedding to Bananarama’s Siobhan Fahey.
Inevitably, changes have occurred over the years. Their brother Paul died suddenly in June 2002, Finbar left the band in December 1996, and Davey had a stroke in March 2014, which he is still recovering from. However, George and Eddie continued to delight audiences on their tours and by releasing CDs.
In May 2026, the Fureys will come to an end. Eddie and George say, “We will have very mixed emotions over the next number of months, knowing our working lives as we have known them for so long will be coming to an end.
“We know we have been among the luckiest people on earth, having a ‘job’ we love and enjoy, travelling the world to places we would never have been to, meeting people and making many friends, we would never have met.
“However, time catches up with us all, and we will look to a new future from the middle of 2026, playing at the odd music session and seeing the younger Furey generation playing their music. Our manager Joe McCadden will also be retiring from the business after 56 years, 39 of them with us.”
Tickets for The Fureys’ Farewell Tour are available online at tht.ie, alternatively by calling the box office at the Town Hall Theatre on 091 569777 or by calling into the Town Hall Theatre.
