Donegal's Little Hours are getting ready to make a real splash on the music scene

They may rail against the Donegal jokes, but Little Hours are proud to be spoken of as their home county’s next big thing in the music world, writes Ed Power.

Coming from Donegal, indie pop duo Little Hours have had to run a gauntlet of stereotypes. “Someone asked the other day if all our songs were about sheep?” jokes frontman Ryan McCloskey. “People generally haven’t been to Donegal and think it’s a place with no wifi and no real roads.”

Ireland’s northernmost country has given us Daniel O’Donnell, Enya and that annoying song about the Jim McGuinness. But Little Hours are a very different proposition, with a sound that blends the earnestness of Coldplay and the shaggy blues-rock of Hozier.