Allen Gogarty was born into a musical family in County Meath, Ireland. He was playing instruments from an early age and writing his own songs by his early teens. He started a band with his siblings, playing the pub circuit at home and festivals across Europe, then trained at Ballyfermot Senior College and the College of Music in Dublin before going out on his own. The reputation he built in Ireland and Europe earned him opening slots for Suzanne Vega and Status Quo.
He moved to New York in 2003 and has spent more than twenty years on the city’s Irish music circuit, performing solo and with the Allen Gogarty Band at venues including Connolly’s, Garvey’s, the Wild Goose, An Beal Bocht and the Red Lion.
His album Mind Cocoon was recorded in Dublin in 2000. In 2006 he released Creature, a collaboration with the Wadds, and in 2016 the single “Stand Down”, recorded in Chicago. He is working on new music.
He is known in New York’s Irish community for championing benefits and fundraisers, including raising over $10,000 for the Sláinte Irish relief fund. During the pandemic he lent his songwriting and voice to the FEW Coalition’s campaign for relief for all immigrant essential workers in New York State, and he received a Creatives Rebuild New York grant through the Emerald Isle Immigration Center. When he had a heart attack in 2022, more than 40 Irish bands came together for an all-day benefit at the Joyce Public House, a measure of the community he has spent two decades giving back to.