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Following hot on the heels of pop giant Niall Horan’s sell-out show, another huge act is set to play the iconic INEC. Venue officials have confirmed that Snow Patrol will come to Killarney on May 14, with tickets going on sale next Friday, March 30.

Over a two-decade career, Snow Patrol has carved out a unique place for themselves. Since their 1998 debut, Songs for Polarbears, which Pitchfork hailed as “an impressive piece of work,” their melancholy anthems of heartbreak and separation have mended hearts, and the band has racked up an impressive number of critical and commercial accolades, including 15 million global album sales, over 1 billion global track streams, five UK Platinum Albums, and are Grammy, BRIT Award and Mercury Music Prize nominated.

They emerged as heartsore musical prophets in the shadow of grunge and shallow pop, striking a chord in the minds, memories and hearts of listeners over six ground-breaking, confessional albums. Eyes Open, released in 2006, was the biggest-selling album in the UK that year; they went on to headline such festivals as the prestigious T in the Park. But after their Fallen Empires tour ended in 2012, band members — guitarist, vocalist Gary Lightbody, guitarists Johnny McDaid and Nathan Connolly, bassist Paul Wilson, and drummer Jonny Quinn — decided to stop for a while.

“I do think the rest of the band would have been ready to record at any point over the last five years. But they never showed frustration or anger. Never did they say, ‘Hurry up and write the songs, mate,’” said Lightbody.

In the interim, Lightbody put the finishing touches on The Ghost of the Mountain, the second album by his Tired Pony side project with members of Belle and Sebastian, R.E.M, Reindeer Section and Fresh Young Fellows. He then moved to Los Angeles and began writing songs for movies (including “This Is How You Walk On” for 2017’s Gifted), and doing a number of high-profile co-writes with Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and One Direction. Songs that weren’t pulled from his own psyche were less painful to craft, and went a long way into healing what he considered to be writer’s block.

Which is what he did for Snow Patrol’s seventh album. Titled Wildness, it taps into something raw and primitive.

Tickets for all tour dates go on sale at 10am on Friday, March 30 via Ticketmaster outlets and www.inec.ie.