Legends of Irish music & song, The FUREYS — renowned for their hit songs ‘I Will Love You’, ‘When You Were Sweet 16’, ‘The Green Fields of France’, ‘The Old Man’, ‘Red Rose Café’, ‘From Clare to Here’, ‘Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway’, ‘Leaving Nancy’, ‘Steal Away’ etc. — take to The Helix stage for the final time as part of their FAREWELL TOUR.
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, traveling 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.”
The oldest of the brothers, Eddie Furey, left home in 1966 and travelled to Scotland during the great folk revival, where he met and shared accommodation with then-unknown folk singers Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty.
In 1972, Gerry Rafferty wrote ‘Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway’ for Eddie. BBC Radio 1 presenter, the late John Peel, made it his single of the year.
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 how
“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 Dave’s wedding to Bananarama’s Siobhan Fahey.
Their emotive songs stir many emotions — tears and laughter, sadness and joy.
