Fontaines D.C.’s Tom Coll Reveals His Essential Irish Folk Tracks

“I suppose it was COVID coming around,” Tom Coll says over a can of Guinness, speaking over Zoom from his childhood home in the mountains at the edge of Castlebar, Co. Mayo. “I was sitting here, in this sitting room, listening to Lankum a lot. The Mary Wallopers had started their live streams, and traditional Irish music was having a huge moment. This was coupled with everyone being at home — a lot of people being in Ireland that maybe wouldn’t otherwise have been in Ireland.”

Coll, the drummer of Fontaines D.C., speaks about how he came to put together Goitse A Thaisce, a compilation of traditional Irish songs he released on his Skinty Records label in 2021.

“There was something so special in those few months,” he reflects, “where the world kind of stopped. Being at home and being surrounded by mountains, it felt like the time to really get reconnected with trad.”

Much has been made of Irish post-punk outfit Fontaines D.C. “moving beyond” Ireland in their latest LP, Romance,, but the Irish tradition is never far from Coll’s mind. Earlier this summer, working alongside The Pogues’ co-founder Spider Stacy. He helped to organize a 40th-anniversary show for the band’s debut album, Red Roses For Me, in London.

Coll’s relationship with traditional music runs deep, having been introduced to it by his late dad, a community organizer and bagpiper. “He got into it with all his mates,” he says. “It was a community thing, which is something I hold dearly. That was my start in music, as well. It introduces you to playing with people who are not necessarily good, but it’s more of a social inclusion project. There’s something really powerful about that.”

Throughout a rambling, late-night Zoom call, Coll spoke about the Irish musical tradition he loves and some of his favorite tunes.

Tom Coll: I did that Pogues show with Spider, and he was talking about the first recorded version of this song being the Pogues’ version. So it’s obviously a local tune to Tipperary [County] and Shane [MacGowan]’s family, which is mad. I think he learned it from his mother and his uncle. It was never recorded before. Being on the Pogues’ first record — that’s such a high level for it to first enter the world.

John [Francis Flynn’s] version of it is amazing. He’s so good at really honoring the tradition, but also bringing it into a really modern, almost ambient soundscape. It’s quite dark and kind of droney, and it has that drum machine loop that’s really weird.

We played it at the Pogues gig, and John sang it, but he did the Shane version. It was a proper nod to the past.

Ah, this tune, man. This tune breaks my heart.

I heard it first after I’d just moved to London. I was walking down Holloway Road, which is a big Irish workers’ area historically, and I was listening to this tune about a little child’s dad who’s working on the roads and building the English motorways. It just made me think how there have been literally hundreds and hundreds of people walking this road before me who have just moved over to England — obviously under different circumstances — to work. It’s such a well-trodden path.

It’s such a beautiful song. What’s so great about the ballad tradition is that it’s not overwritten. It’s conversational. It’s somebody just telling you a story.

This tune is off Dervish’s album, Midsummer’s Night. It’s probably my favorite trad album ever. Maybe. I picked this tune because it’s what you want from a session in a pub. Like, virtuosic players absolutely ripping. That’s my snapshot of a trad session. If you picture the corner of a pub in Ireland, you’d love to see that.

The Pecker Dunne is probably my favorite figure in Irish trad music. He was an Irish traveler born in Castlebar. If you see a photo of him, he’s such a buck. He’s massive. He has a big beard and long curly hair. He’s a legend. People don’t call him “Pecker Dunne.” They call him “the Pecker Dunne.”

I came across this tune through a guy called Jordan O’Leary, who plays the guitar in The Scratch. He put out an EP a few years ago called The Burren Tapes, which is him and a banjo playing three or four Irish tunes. He did “Sullivan’s John” and “Portlaoise Jail,” which are both tunes made famous by the Pecker Dunne.

His music is amazing. He’s one of those really important figures in traveler culture, which is often overlooked.

This is such a fucking tune. I was listening to it earlier, and it’s such a funny story. It’s about a daughter inviting a lad up to her room, and the mam and dad are in the room next door. They hear a knock in the night, and the dad heads out to check, so the daughter hides the lad under the covers. But then, later, the mam hears a bump again and then falls into the fucking creel. Like, that’s hilarious. I listened to it earlier and I was just laughing so much.