Ed Sheeran falls in love in Ireland in the video for “Galway Girl” off his chart-topping album ÷. Shot by Sheeran himself while on location in Dublin, the Jason Koenig-directed clip co-stars Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn, Atonement).
Following his show, Sheeran meets up with his love interest at a bar on Grafton Street. After hitting the dance floor, they run through the Irish city, meeting some street performers, while being chased by fans. Ed stops at a tattoo parlor to get a “Galway Girl” tat, and the journey continues on bike. Between pints of beer, they dance the night away in a pub, but the evening ends with Sheeran getting punched in the face.
The Celtic folk song almost didn’t make Sheeran’s latest album. “[The label was] really, really against ‘Galway Girl’, because apparently folk music isn’t cool,” he told The Guardian. “But there’s 400m people in the world that say they’re Irish, even if they’re not Irish. You meet them in America all the time: ‘I’m a quarter Irish and I’m from Donegal.’ And those type of people are going to fucking love it.”
÷, which has also spawned the No. 1 single “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill,” recently became the first album released in 2017 to be certified platinum by the RIAA.
