Ed Sheeran sings on this folk-pop song about falling for an Irish girl. The track is the result of him inviting the Northern Irish trad-folk band Beoga to his home recording studio for a week. Sheeran explained to The Irish Times: "It was based on the fiddle player in Beoga, Niamh [Dunne]. She's married to an Irishman, a friend of mine. I had the band in my house for an extra day so I was like, 'what can I write about? She plays the fiddle in an Irish band... right, cool, let's write a song about that.' She inspired the first line but the rest of the song isn't about anyone, I just made up a story." Dunne is from Limerick, not Galway, but try getting that in a song.
Galway is a city on the west coast of Ireland where Sheeran's cousin and uncle both live. "It's a really beautiful place," he told Spotify. "It's like cobbled streets, it's quintessential Ireland."
Sheeran was concerned that Steve Earle has a song with the same title. He told BBC: "I actually tried to find another lyric. I did Wexford Girl and Clonakity Girl and Cork Girl... none of them worked. But the whole point of folk songs is taking inspiration from the past and making something new - so people will just have to deal with it."
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