Cliffords celebrate outsiders and fight Irish stereotypes on powerful new single ‘Rod For My Back’

Cliffords are back with the lively new single ‘Rod For My Back’, which sees them celebrate outsiders and fight Irish stereotypes.

• READ MORE: Cliffords talk working on a “refined” debut album: “It’s all about that contrast of life that we keep living through”

The Cork four piece released the song as their first new music of the year, and the first of more to come in 2027.

It arrives following them completing a run of tour dates with The Mary Wallopers, and also nearly a year to the day of them dropping their last single, ‘Marsh’, back in November 2025.

Musically, ‘Rod For My Back’ singer Iona Lynch and co at their most explosive, with a gritty, driving guitar riff underpinning the track, along with captivating vocal melodies, and lyrics that call out prejudice and stereotypes.

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“‘Rod For My Back’ is a story about being misunderstood and commodified for a culture in which we always felt like outsiders,” the singer explained. “As a queer woman who didn’t fit the conventional norms of GAA clubs and the Catholic Church, I never quite felt “Irish” enough.”

Lynch continued: “When we started touring around the UK for the first time, we were quickly put into a cultural box, as were the rest of our Irish peers. It felt as if our unique identities as Irish people were distilled down to an idea of culture which we never felt a part of, as if we had been washed away in a new wave of G-splitting Plastic Paddy enthusiasts.”

Earlier this summer, the NME 100 alumni caught up with us backstage at Mad Cool 2026, having already supported Mumford & Sons at BST Hyde Park and opened for Florence + The Machine over that past week alone.

In the interview, the band opened up about when we could expect more music from them, following on from their debut EP ‘Strawberry Scented’ in 2024, and the critically acclaimed EP, ‘Salt of the Lee’ in 2025.

“We’re working on a new project right now,” keyboardist Locon O’Toole revealed to NME. “After this little run we’re going to be in the studio recording some new music which will hopefully be out soon. Maybe it’s time for a full album…”

“It’s so exciting going into it because we’ve spent so many months writing,” he added. “We had such a massive year last year and basically this year we just locked ourselves in a small room in Blackpool and wrote from 9am to 5pm every day.”

Lynch added that the majority of the writing has been done between Cork and Blackpool over the span of four months, and explained that the heavier themes of mental health seen in the single ‘Marsh’ will be prevalent throughout the upcoming debut album too.

“I think I’ll always do that. Writing lyrics for me is really fun because it’s the only time I get to understand myself. When you’re writing, you can see yourself on the page after a while,” she shared. “Then it’s so nice to play a gig because you see people singing it back and it also means so much to them. It makes you realise how close we all are as people and how much your experiences are also someone else’s experiences.

“So this album deals with lots of things. Good, bad, sad, and all of the above. I think that’s why I love it so much. It’s all about that contrast of life that we keep living through.”

The indie four-piece also spoke to us in 2025 about the inspiration behind their music, and how it feels to see their fanbase grow.

“When I was a teenager, the bands that I thought were the most famous and coolest were local Cork bands. I wanted to turn 18 to go to [local venue] Fred Zeppelins to see them.” Lynch said, also adding that when the band eventually got to be a part of their local scene, it was everything they had wanted: “There were about two years that, to me, were like gold dust – beautiful times when we were all out all the time with all these bands playing.”