The Danny Byrne Band will keep you up all night! 

09/07/2025

Saturday night at Full of the Pipe 2025 promises to be something very special indeed as The Danny Byrne Band will be rocking Mondello Park with their lively brand of upbeat modern Irish folk music. Brothers Danny and Budgie Byrne are of course lorry drivers themselves and they can’t wait to put on a landmark show for their fellow truckers! 

History will be made at Full of the Pipe this year when Ireland’s fastest-growing music combo, The Danny Byrne Band, take to the stage at Ireland’s premier truck show for the first time. 

Delivering an eclectic and truly invigorating mix of dieseled-up contemporary and traditional Irish folk, the boys from South Armagh never fail to get the audience moving and their debut performance at Mondello on Saturday night, July 12th, 2025 promises to be something extra special. 

Many are travelling to the event just to see the band and to say that the gig is a keenly anticipated one might well be an exercise in understatement. As a trucker through and through, the eponymous band frontman Danny is looking forward to the show and to the event itself as much as anybody: 

“We go to Full of the Pipe every year and bring our own lorry. For the last few years, we had to travel there and back because we had gigs to play elsewhere but this time will be better as we’re actually playing there so we’ll be able to stick around. 

“Budgie has been saying to me for a long time that we should just book the weekend off and go to Full of the Pipe. So this year we are getting the best of both worlds – we’re going to Full of the Pipe and playing there so we didn’t even have to book the weekend off!” 

Danny normally brings his trusty Scania 164 which pulls the trailer with all the music equipment and doubles up as a show lorry. He’s recently taken possession of a second lorry for doing band work – a Scania R450 – and there’s also a Danny Byrne Band van, so the lads know their way around commercial vehicles. 

The association with Full of the Pipe goes back many years, as the Armagh performer and composer confirms: “I did a song years ago called ‘Full of the Pipe’. I was originally a folk singer and then did country music for a while and I played at Full of the Pipe in Punchestown as a one man show about ten years ago. I got back doing the folk music and then started the Danny Byrne Band and things just started to spiral. I’m really looking forward to going back to Full of the Pipe now as a full touring band with a full production.” 

While The Danny Byrne Band hasn’t exactly been an overnight sensation, it has certainly captured the public’s imagination big time within a relatively short period of time. Danny, Budgie and the boys only started out around three years ago, just after Covid, and through hard work, perseverance, vision and no little talent, things have really taken off. 

“It all comes down to hard work, really,” says Danny. “There are some quieter times and then a lot of the time you are flat out. We’ll be very busy from May right through the summer and into mid-to-late October. There’ll probably be a wee bit of a lull then and it’ll all kick off again for Christmas.” 

With five in the band and a road crew of three, The Danny Byrne Band is a full touring band offering a full stage production. Four of the five band members come from within 15 minutes of one another close to Crossmaglen in South Armagh – two sets of brothers, actually: Danny and Budgie as well as Senan and Davin – while drummer Gerry is from neighbouring Tyrone. “Oran is our manager, Jason is our lighting engineer and technician and ‘Big Chief’ – who is also a lorry driver – also helps out on the road,” says Danny. 

As well as their live shows, The Danny Byrne Band have put together some fantastically entertaining music videos which have gone down a storm online. They are huge on TikTok as well as the other social media platforms and the videos are great fun. “It’s all a bit of craic – that’s what we are trying to put across,” adds Danny, who takes on all of the driving for the band himself: 

“I like to do the driving and sure look if push came to shove I probably wouldn’t trust anybody else to do it. There’s no point me going up the road thinking I’m Rod Stewart with my own chauffeur.” 

The band’s most recent hit is the original composition ‘Up All Night’ - an absolute belter of a trad-rave anthem for the Irish-agri teenage generation, offering mayhem all around, wild festival energy and an unforgettable night’s craic. In the video, Bad Company boss and TikTok star Falvey makes a special guest appearance in an unforeseen job role, while Miss Galaxy Rachel Foley blasts onto the music video scene stealing Senan’s heart along the way. 

Meanwhile, ‘Brown Boots’ is another agri’d up, trad-rave instant classic featuring Kings of the Road and Black Paddy in the fun-filled video, while the lads’ turbo-charged, trad-rave remix of The Band Perry's classic ‘If I Die Young’ is a crazy petrol-fuelled music video featuring South Armagh TikTok legend Monty and Clare’s Molly Kelly, filmed in Mayobridge, County Down, Slieve Gullion and Belleeks, South Armagh. 

The riveting live show usually begins with a few bars from Dropkick Murphys’ ‘I'm Shipping Up to Boston’ running into ‘The Irish Rover’ and the lads will then mix it up. “We’d do ‘The Irish Rover’, ‘Living Next Door to Alice’ and you’d even get the odd Abba song out of us,” Danny comments. “We do a mix of covers and original material and for Full of the Pipe I’d say we’ll pull out some stuff that we don’t usually do.” 

As Full of the Pipe draws closer, the sense of anticipation is almost palpable: “It’ll be great craic and we’re looking forward to it. We’d know a lot of the drivers, companies and owners. To be fair, I’d say there’ll be very few truckers at it that I don’t know. 

“We know Buggy’s very well – Budgie drives with them – and we were in beside Hendrick’s last year. They are red and we are red and when we parked in beside them they polished our lorry for us as well as their own. That’s the kind of spirit you get at Full of the Pipe. You make a lot of friends and everybody is mad for the craic.” 

Craic is exactly what The Danny Byrne Band will be bringing to the party! 

Full of the Pipe Truck Show Ireland is on July 12 & 13 in Mondello Park