Cork band Cardinals on the Irish "cultural bubble" and debut album 'Masquerade' for DIY's Class of 2026 • Neu • DIY Magazine

Cardinals haven’t been home for quite some time. Back in Ireland briefly in the middle of a relentless string of gigs, the Kinsale-born, Cork-founded band have barely stopped to take a breath along what’s proven to be a breakneck rise to acclaim.

Frontman Euan Manning is speaking to DIY from his Cork home alongside brother and bandmate Finn. They’re an interesting pair, and not quite what you might expect from two brothers in a rock band; there are few Gallagher-esque fireworks, as both Mannings suggest themselves thoughtful, and quietly considered.

They do, however, chip in on each other’s answers as only brothers can, and when asked where they’ve been recently recount a dizzying itinerary. “We started what I consider this stint of touring in September. We did America…” starts Euan, before Finn picks up: “Paris, and then the Netherlands, and then America and then…” “England?” Euan replies. “We did a headline tour with So Young in England, and we just supported NewDad. Then we’re doing some headline shows in Europe next week. So we’ve been busy.”

‘Busy’, then, seems an understatement - the band have also found time in 2025 to record a debut album, ‘Masquerade’. A taut, vulnerable piece of work, it finds discordant guitars ringing out alongside accordions and Euan’s keen, vulnerable voice. It’s a hard sound to pin down - there are echoes of emo, and of songwriters like Jeff Buckley. What do the band themselves define it as? “I don’t know… we always just say rock and roll, I think,” offers Euan. “We’ve heard some pretty bad explanations of what we do, so I feel like we try to stay away from that.” Finn grins: “A couple of years ago we got [called] ‘the drunken Smiths’, and then recently ‘the sober Pogues’. I think it just shows how strange the old comparison thing is. Rock and roll music, I’ll say.”

Euan and Finn aren’t the only family members in Cardinals, either - their cousin Darragh plays drums, with childhood friends Oskar and Aaron completing the lineup on guitar and bass respectively. Originally hailing from Kinsale, they have since relocated to Cork, which they feel is the band’s spiritual home. As such, ‘Masquerade’’s penultimate track is titled ‘The Burning of Cork’. “It’s a very authentic Irish city. It feels very real here, and there’s a kind of grit to Cork, which I think we all really love,” Euan explains. “It just feels like a haven; Cork is very much here for its own reasons, and it doesn’t try to put up any false pretences.”

“We’re still balancing on this insecurity of not knowing how long anything is going to last.”

— Euan Manning

They’re just one part of a wider scene flying the flag for the city. “There’s some great bands playing here at the moment - The Altered Hours, Pebbledash,” he nods. “You can always go to a great DIY show in Cork. A lot of bigger bands skip us on their tours, and will just hit Dublin and maybe Belfast, so we’ve had to build our own scene up here.” The brothers give a sense, though, that such things can be fleeting. “Ireland’s interesting. There’s four or five big cities and where’s good revolves quite a lot. Cork was really good three years ago, and it’s still quite good now, but before that Galway was really good, and before that Dublin, at the time of Fontaines DC and The Murder Capital.”

Ireland’s two largest rock exports of the past few years, those artists are also acts Cardinals garner comparisons to. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to feel they’re at a similar point they were a few short years ago; on the cusp of releasing their debut album, a true make-or-break moment for any artist. “An album feels like an actual tangible thing, like a real step towards something,” says Euan, “but we’re still balancing on this insecurity of not knowing how long anything is going to last.” Finn agrees: “Putting out music is the first and foremost thing that we want to do and achieve as a band, and yeah, an album is a tangible thing. As an artist, that’s your only priority really… it’s the only thing you actually need to be able to do.”

The album itself has duality written right through its core. While Euan’s delivery veers from whispers at points to shouting at others, tonally the record shifts darker and more mournful from the A-side to the B-side. Even the record’s front cover (a painting by Oda Sønderland) depicts two halves; a bleak, frozen wasteland above, and an ominous, blood red figure below. “That shows up on the album in terms of vulnerability in songs,” reflects Finn, “the juxtaposition of vulnerability and anger. Both the ballads and the heavier music encapsulates Cardinals, and that’s shown up on the record’s tracklisting.”

The band draw from influences that feel natural, given their grit (they cite Danish band Iceage, as well as “proto-punk, punk, post-punk” as guiding lights), but also list source material that feels a little further away from their self-described ‘rock and roll’. “We’re really into our folk music,” ventures Finn, and a nodding Euan agrees: “Ballads, and especially the folk tradition, [have] this all-encompassing idea that they hold through time - if it’s good enough, it’s eternal.” Finn continues: “When we were writing we tried to riff on old folk melodies, and change it up. You take something new out of that, but you’re directly then being inspired by melodies which have been in the realm - be it Irish, or English folk or Scottish folk, American folk - for hundreds of years.”

Folk can sometimes feel like a lazy descriptor, something both Mannings are acutely aware of. “Especially if there’s an accordion in the group as well, trying to deflect from the Irish allegations, and the pirate allegations, is difficult,” says Euan with a smirk. “We’re definitely a rock and roll band more so than any kind of a folk band. We love and respect it, and kind of think it’s actually unfair on rock music and on folk music to lump us in that as a folk band.”

“As in artist, if you take yourself seriously, you need to maybe not connect your art so much to your nation.”

— Finn Manning

This discussion of Irish misrepresentation leads us on to the recent time the nation has seen in the global spotlight: it’s hard not to wonder if their success will continue to have any trickle-down effect for younger Irish bands. “There’s definitely a spotlight on it, but all we’ve been talking about recently has been this cultural bubble in Ireland, which is growing and growing,” Euan explains. “I think it probably is about to burst at some stage,” Finn chips in. “So I think as an artist, if you take yourself seriously, you need to maybe not connect your art so much to your nation. That goes for anyone of any country really - it’s just not healthy for your art.”

Despite the strange point Cardinals find themselves at - out on an endless tour, rubbing shoulders with musical heroes, on the precipice of greater things - they make for astute conversation, with an absolute allergy to hyperbole. Euan, for one, is already looking ahead. “After you finish something, there’s this transitionary period,” he says. “I felt pretty empty during the summer, not really sure what I was doing. The first sign of being inspired to do something new again, you can really latch onto that and just take it with you. So I’m glad to be coming out of whatever was the post-album feeling, into these new, very early stages of feeling out what the next record would be.”

But, in the meantime, for Cardinals there’s the small case of that hectic live schedule to be thinking about: as our conversation wraps up, they’re packing to fly imminently to Europe, to begin another leg of gigs there. Any advice? “You always need more socks and underwear,” laughs Finn. “I actually find being at home weird now, not being on tour feels strange to me,” ventures Euan. “I’m looking forward to getting back on the road. On Sunday we’re flying to Paris - keeping it going.” There’s the distinct sense Cardinals might be on the road for some time yet.

‘Masquerade’ is out on 13th February via So Young Records.

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