Girl Band update name to Gilla Band and apologise for "choosing a misgendered name"

16 November 2021, 11:14 | Written by Cerys Kenneally

(News)

(Girl Band) (Gilla Band)

Dublin's Girl Band will be called Gilla Band moving forwards, and have shared a statement on the name change, apologising for "choosing a misgendered name in the first place."

The group haven't released new music since 2019's The Talkies album, but today (16 November) they've returned with news about their immediate name change to Gilla Band.

In a statement, Gilla Band wrote, "We are changing our band name. We will no longer be performing or releasing records under the name Girl Band. We apologise for choosing a misgendered name in the first place and to anyone who has been hurt or affected by it. When we were starting off it was chosen without much thought, from a place of naivety and ignorance. We had no grasp of the weight of it at the time and in the past few years have found it impossible to justify or explain this choice."

"Regardless of our intention the effect of the name has been damaging to individuals," Gilla Band added. "To try and negate any unfortunate role we’ve played in propagating a culture of non inclusivity in music or otherwise, we have decided to change it. Thank you to those who spoke up about it and educated us on this, either directly or indirectly. Moving forward we will be performing and releasing records under the name Gilla Band. Gilla being a given name taken from Old Irish."

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Gilla Band are set to perform new music at their forthcoming residency at Whelans in Dublin, which takes place across three weekends in January 2022. Tickets go on sale general sale from Thursday (18 November) from 10am GMT.