It’s just two minutes and thirty-three seconds long but The Spark has now been heard hundreds of millions of times around the world and universally praised for its energy, joy and authenticity.

The magic of The Spark, says its producer Garry McCarthy (GMC Beats), in a recent article in the Sunday Times, is down to several factors.

“It’s the hyper beat,” he says, “it’s the energy. When you hear the kids’ voices, they’re hyper and aggressive but then you hear the lyrics, and they’re so positive and motivational. And then you have the Cork accents on top of it all; people were just like, ‘What is going on?'”

So where did it come from?

In April 2024 Creative Ireland asked the young people of The Kabin to create an anthem for Cruinniú na nÓg 2024 with Garry and the GMC Beats team as part of Rhyme Island.

As with all songs written and developed with GMC Beats, it was a collaborative process from the beginning. The initial work of developing the chorus and verse began with the young people in The Kabin in Cork and the final 12 bars were added by the Lisdoonvarna Crew, a group of young people from the Clare town’s direct provision centre.

Garry has been running music workshops for young people for years, with his small team of music and film makers based out of prefab cabin gifted to GMC Beats in 2012 by Music Generation.

Creative Ireland has worked with GMC beats since 2021. During the restrictions in place during Covid, ‘We Create Magic’ was recorded with the very young children of Cappabue National School. This enchanting, heart-warming song also celebrating young people’s creativity, went around the world and was featured on Good Morning America.

In 2023, Creative Ireland asked Garry and the team to record a song for Cruinniú na nÓg under the umbrella of the Kabin’s Rhyme Island initiative. That song, Let Me Do My Thing, in turn led to the Lisdoonvarna Crew being invited to perform on The Late Late Toy Show.

Heidi, one of the Kabin Crew kids, said that being part of The Spark was a “brilliant experience” and its viral success has been a “wild ride”. “I wouldn’t [have thought] in a million years that people would love it as much as they did,” she said. “I was only expecting it to go viral in Cork, or Ireland, or between [our] mams not all over the world.”

The song’s video, shot and edited by Seán Downey, aka SwanIGuess, a videographer and tutor at the Kabin was key to the success of The Spark.

“There was nothing choreographed, nothing planned, other than, we’re gonna have a little rave inside the Kabin, then we’re gonna get on the top of the 202 bus into town; it takes 15 minutes, so let’s see if we can record some verses on that, and then let’s record some shots in [music venue] the Pavilion,” McCarthy recalls, laughing. “It was just, ‘OK, everyone just go crazy, just give it the most energy possible.’

McCarthy says that he realised the song was going viral a few days after its release on May 15 and by 17^th June it had over 2 million views with calls coming in from the BBC and media requests from all over the world.

Since then the team have performed live at Becky Hill at her gig in Cork’s Musgrave Park, the Beyond the Pale and Kaleidescope festivals, not to mention opera writing workshops with the Irish National Opera.