St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and whether you plan to celebrate early or day-of, the Galway Gals are here to bring the traditional sounds of Irish music to Chicagoland — with a modern twist.
The classically-trained musical duo, composed of guitarist Liz Berg McNichols and violinist Anna Gillan, both also vocalists, has a packed March schedule in honor of the holiday next month. Starting Friday, March 1, at Pub 78 in Brookfield from 8-11 p.m., the Galway Gals are set to perform their blend of traditional Irish folk music and covers of modern Irish artists — with a few top 40 hits thrown in for good measure — nearly every day for three weeks. Their list of shows includes a televised interview and performance with WGN TV News on March 6, as well as St. Patrick’s Day weekend performances in Oak Forest and Oak Brook Terrace. A full list of the band’s upcoming shows is available on their website.
While Berg McNichols and Gillan mostly perform as the Galway Gals duo, the two also lead rotating groups of four or five musicians when they perform as the Galway Group, bringing in other instrumentalists or vocalists when the show calls for them. Berg McNichols also owns and performs in two other bands, the Jolly Ringwalds and the Saddle Shoe Sisters, with Gillan subbing in for other members when needed. Berg McNichols and Gillan both work in music full-time and perform as the Galway Gals year-round. While they haven’t released original music quite yet, the performing pair hope to do so soon under the Galway Gals name.
Berg McNichols and Gillan first met playing together in a wedding band in 2017, and they quickly became close friends. When the wedding band stayed together and started performing Irish music, Berg McNichols saw an opportunity and took it.
“I really felt that Anna and I were both undervalued in that group, and I felt that we both had things to offer that were not being appreciated,” Berg McNichols said. “Just as experiment, I kind of tossed it out to her. ‘Like, what if we did our own Irish thing, and we called it Galway Gals?’ And she’s like, ‘Sure!’”
The two first formed the Galway Gals in March 2020, but the band didn’t quite get off the ground before the COVID-19 pandemic brought their performing ideas to a halt. The next March, the Gals had to pause once again after Gillan had a child. During that time, they shared music back and forth to nail down what they would perform together. Since then, the duo grew more successful with each passing year, making next month their busiest March yet, Gillan said.
Berg McNichols said she was initially “shocked at the positive reception” the Galway Gals received when the group was still new.
“I feel like we have been making [Irish music] very palatable and accessible to people,” she said. “One of my favorite compliments that we get is people coming up to us and saying, ‘I didn’t think I liked Irish music, but I really love you guys!’”
Berg McNichols also said she was surprised with how deeply audiences have connected to the Irish music she and Gillan perform.
“Even uptempo, fast songs, people are crying and telling us that their grandfather used to play it, or, ‘That song was sung at my grandmother’s funeral.’ People have these deep emotional connections to some of these sentimental Irish tunes,” she said. “We just thought, ‘We’re putting on a good show. We’re going to sing in tune, we’re going to have some good harmonies, we’re going to have great dynamics.’ But we did not expect the emotional connection to the crowd.”
“That keeps it engaging and exciting for us,” Gillan added. “We know that people are responding, and that’s why those songs never get old, because it’s always different to see how people respond and who responds.”
The duo said their performances have something for everybody, from Irish jigs that get kids dancing, to U2 covers their parents will like. The venues where they play are equally varied, they said, from Irish pubs and brunch spots to private events and, unexpectedly, senior homes.
“We find that seniors really like to be spoken with and engaged and incorporated into the show,” Berg McNichols said. “We ask them questions, and we get them clapping along and singing along and tapping along, and it’s very immersive.”
She estimated that 95% of shows they play together result in calls back to play again another time because of how much the crowds enjoy their performances.
For the two, part of the fun of performing together is giving each other the space to succeed individually, which has helped build their friendship.
“We really love harmonies. We trade off who’s singing lead and who’s singing harmony on songs, and we both find moments to shine [on the] instruments,” Berg McNichols said.
While neither of the Galway Gals are Irish, “We both married Irish men and have Irish children,” Berg McNichols added. “I think that both being mothers of small children also has created a bond, just an unspoken bond about life and our priorities.”
In the male-dominated Celtic music scene, the Galway Gals — who are both, as Berg McNichols put it, “strong, driven Aries women” — are proud to stand out from the crowd.
“What I find interesting is, at our shows, I feel sometimes people don’t know what to make of us. I see a transformation go from people who’ve never seen us before. The first couple of songs, [they’re] just watching us, going, ‘Okay, she’s singing a song. Now, she’s singing the song. Oh, now she’s playing really fast,’” Berg McNichols said. “There’s moments where I see their jaws drop watching how fast [Gillan]’s playing.”
Berg McNichols also said she sometimes sees men in the audience point to her as she plays the guitar, impressed with her technique and explaining it to others.
“I hate to say it, but they’re mansplaining what I’m doing on the guitar to their spouse or whoever, and it’s kind of fun,” she said. “They’re complimenting me while they’re doing it, so I don’t get offended by it, but it’s kind of funny because you don’t see them doing that about guys.”
Ultimately, the Galway Gals’ success — with both fans of and strangers to Irish music — is down to both their talents in and love of performing music.
“Our philosophy, and I think why we’ve been successful, is we choose songs that we both like, but that also we feel that the crowd will respond to and like,” Berg McNichols said. “We always can change up arrangements or change little things to make them good, and I think that’s a really good rule of success, is finding something that you authentically enjoy that the audience also enjoys. That’s worked out really, really well for us, and it’s just been so much fun.”
