Josh Dobbyn Butler

Josh is a 20 year old musician from Waterford City who has made Galway his home for the past two and a half years. Officially, he’s here to study mechanical engineering. Unofficially, it was Galway’s rich music scene that drew him in. As college has gone on, he’s realised the pull of music is stronger than the idea of a nine-to-five engineering job behind a desk.

Music is the thread that runs through Josh’s day, from the moment he puts on his headphones to late-night practice sessions. He plays bass and guitar and has recently begun learning his grandfather’s old Irish traditional accordion. Mostly self-taught, he dives into online tutorials, theory apps and his own scribbled notebooks. Josh is especially drawn to Irish trad’s proud, anti-imperialist streak and sees it as a unique, powerful expression of contemporary Irish identity and resistance.