CMAT

CMAT
CMAT performing in 2025
Background information
Born	Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson (1996-02-23) 23 February 1996 Dublin, Ireland
Origin	Dunboyne, County Meath, Ireland
Genres	Indie pop country pop
Occupations	Musician singer songwriter
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Years active	2017 (2017)–present
Labels	CMATBaby AWAL
Website	cmatbaby.com

Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson (born 23 February 1996), known professionally as CMAT (/ˈsiːmæt/, SEE-mat), is an Irish musician.¹ She has released three studio albums, If My Wife New I'd Be Dead (2022), Crazymad, for Me (2023) and Euro-Country (2025). Her music has been described by Kate Hutchinson of The Guardian as "songs [that] are mournful yet accessible, emotionally literate and cleverly crafted, but, crucially, with a huge sense of humour".²

Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson was born on 23 February 1996³ in Dublin. When she was 3 years old, she and her family moved to Clonee. When she was 12 years old, they moved to Dunboyne, a town of 5,000 residents in County Meath.⁴ Her mother, Sinead Lanigan, is a nurse. She has 3 siblings: a sister and brother who are nurses, and another sister who is a teacher. Her father works in computers.⁵⁶

From a young age, CMAT aspired to be a professional musician; however, her family viewed it as impractical, preferring that she pursue a stable career.⁵ CMAT said that until age 12, her "life was structured around the Catholic Church". She hated going to mass, which she found boring, but began to enjoy it when she was added as a member of the choir.⁷ She listened to Dolly Parton as a child.⁸ Her grandfather introduced her to Skepta, while her mother introduced her to Boney M., Gerry Ryan, The Beautiful South, and Mary Black.⁹¹⁰ When she was 10 years old, she became obsessed with The Beatles.¹⁰ After seeing Taylor Swift on The Paul O'Grady Show and Emma Roberts in Unfabulous, she was inspired to learn guitar and begin songwriting. She wrote her first song at age 12, although she was embarrassed by her early creations.¹⁰

CMAT attended St. Peter's College, Dunboyne, a secondary school. As a teenager, she had low self-esteem and spent most of her time in her bedroom.¹¹ She enjoyed watching reruns of The Old Grey Whistle Test¹⁰ and was an avid Tumblr user.¹² When she was 15, she often snuck into gay clubs; she said they were the "first place where I felt I was ever accepted for being the exact person I am".¹³ In her mid-teens, prompted by a music teacher, CMAT became musically influenced by the Villagers, Dory Previn, and Kate & Anna McGarrigle.⁹ After high school, she moved with her family to Copenhagen.¹⁰ At age 17, she performed a mashup of "Couleur cafe" by Serge Gainsbourg and "Mama Look at Bubu" by Harry Belafonte for her university entrance exam.¹⁰ She returned to Dublin at age 18 to study at Trinity College Dublin. At that time, she said she wanted to be a pop star like Ariana Grande.¹⁴ At the advice of her tutor, she dropped out due to her severe physical and mental health struggle and moved to Denmark for three months to attend a songwriting camp.¹⁵

In 2016, she formed a band, Bad Sea, with her boyfriend, Alan Farrell, whom she met on Tinder.¹³ The band played at the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival and the Other Voices Music Trail.¹⁵ In the autumn of 2017, she relocated to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, near Manchester, to pursue a career in music; it was cheaper than moving to London.^19111316 Her manager, Jamie MacColl of Bombay Bicycle Club,⁹ and her boyfriend dismissed most of her songs, including "Another Day (KFC)", as "being too comedic or unserious".¹⁰ While living in Manchester, she worked at TK Maxx and a nightclub and frequently took the bus to London for music events.⁹¹³ She later said that her five-year relationship with her boyfriend was toxic, filled with infidelity and further isolation from friends and family. She then turned to alcohol to cope and gained weight. This led her to quit being a musician because she felt that she "couldn't be chubby and a woman and play the guitar".¹¹

In 2018, she attended a Spotify listening session in London where she met Charli XCX. She provided specific feedback to Charli XCX on her new unreleased songs and Charli provided her feedback to reimagine her approach.¹³¹⁷ On the Megabus back to Manchester, with no money and no friends, CMAT made the decision to break up with her boyfriend and move back to her mother's house in Dublin.¹⁰¹¹ After breaking up with her boyfriend, alone in her flat crying, at age 22, she wrote "I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!", her breakthrough song, in 20 minutes.¹⁸¹⁹ She moved from Manchester to Dublin in December 2018.¹³ In Dublin, she rented space in a yoga studio after-hours to write and record.⁹

In November 2019, CMAT recorded 5 songs in New York, including "Rodney", a song about Rodney Dangerfield.⁹ She noted that she was lucky with the timing as the recordings were done just before the COVID-19 pandemic.¹⁵ In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she self-released "Another Day (KFC)".⁹ She posted acoustic recordings to YouTube once a week for 6 months.¹⁰ One of her viewers became her new talent manager, who convinced her to remain a solo artist.¹⁰ She gained considerable attention, including radio play from RTÉ Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6 Music.⁹²⁰²¹ In October 2021, she signed a recording contract with AWAL.²²

CMAT's debut studio album If My Wife New I'd Be Dead was released in February 2022. Metacritic gives the album a score of 85 based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".²³ The album entered the Irish Albums Chart at number one.²⁴ In June 2022, she released a single called "Peter Bogdanovich", named after director Peter Bogdanovich; in the music video, she dressed as Bogdanovich.²⁵²⁶ In August 2022, the single charted at number 20 on the Irish Homegrown Top 20.²⁷ In March 2023, If My Wife New I'd Be Dead won the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year.²⁸

Her next studio album, Crazymad, for Me, was released in October 2023.²⁹ Like her previous album, this album debuted at number one on the Irish Albums Chart.³⁰ In May 2024, the album was nominated for the Best Album at the Ivor Novello Awards.³¹ Also in May 2024, a video posted by the BBC on Instagram of CMAT's performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend festival, which showed CMAT removing her shirt to reveal a tighter outfit beneath, received many comments described as "fat-shaming"; BBC then disabled comments on the post.⁶³²

CMAT provided vocals on the track "I Like Your Look" by Blossoms on their fifth studio album Gary, released in September 2024.³³

In March 2025, CMAT released "Running/Planning", the first single of her next album, Euro-Country.³⁴³⁵ In May 2025, "Take a Sexy Picture of Me" was released. The song, which is a rejection of the criticism CMAT has received about her physical appearance, went viral online.³⁶³⁷ CMAT performed "Running/Planning" and "Take a Sexy Picture of Me" on the first episode of the 66th series of Later... with Jools Holland on 18 May 2025.³⁸ She performed on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury Festival 2025, earning positive reviews.³⁹

The title track for the next album was released in July 2025. It received media attention and praise for its portrayal of ordinary people's struggles after the 2008 financial crisis.⁴⁰⁴¹ Her third studio album Euro-Country was released in August 2025. She describes the album as the "type of loss, pain and lack of community that I feel we are suffering from under modern capital isolation".⁴² Like her previous two albums, Euro-Country debuted at number one on the Irish Albums Chart.⁴³ It debuted at number two in the UK.⁴⁴

In December 2025, she extended her recording contract with AWAL.⁴⁵

CMAT spoke out against fascism at the Brit Awards 2026, saying that fascism was on the rise in the UK, Ireland, and the United States.⁴⁶ Previously, in 2023, she stated that Ireland was "infiltrated" by a "Neo-Capitalist snake".⁴⁷ Upon the release of Euro-Country (2025), she said that "Ireland is a European country run by the euro" and that "capitalism is one of the worst things to ever happen to us."⁴⁸ She blamed the high cost of living in Ireland for the increased emigration from Ireland. In 2023, CMAT said she would fiercely oppose Fianna Fáil politician Bertie Ahern, who was the Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, if he ran for President of Ireland in the 2025 elections in the Republic of Ireland.⁴⁹ CMAT's single, "Euro-Country" (2025), references Ahern with the lyrics "All the big boys, all the Berties, all the envelopes, yeah, they hurt me..." and "I was 12 when the das started killing themselves all around me."⁵⁰ CMAT stated that, as an Irish person, her relationship with England will always be "complicated" and that she moved there only because it is necessary to further her music career; her goal is to move back to Dublin.⁴⁷

CMAT supports Palestinian sovereignty and has led the crowd at many of her shows in chants of "Free, free Palestine", or, at shows in the United States, "ICE Out, free Palestine". These include the 2025 Glastonbury Festival,⁵¹ Coachella 2026,⁸ and All Together Now.⁵² She has stated that it important to "get that slogan ['free Palestine'] correct" to avoid what may be considered "as hate speech".⁵³ In May 2024, CMAT said she would not perform at Latitude Festival due to the festival's sponsorship by Barclays, which allegedly "increased their financing of various companies who are supplying weapons and military technology to Israel".⁵⁴⁵⁵ In June 2024, she rejoined the lineup after Barclays was dropped as the main sponsor.⁵⁶ CMAT additionally supports trans rights and opposes TERFism, which she noted came to Ireland from the United Kingdom.⁴⁷ In October 2025, she criticized Róisín Murphy after Murphy posted that trans people resulted in "absolute havoc wreaked on children, families and society".⁵⁷

In March 2026, CMAT criticised the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival and Wim Wenders, who said that cinema should "stay out of politics", calling it "cowardice".⁵⁸

CMAT is bisexual. She had her first "lesbian experience" at a Little Comets concert at Koko in Camden Town.⁵⁹ CMAT has been noted for her large fanbase among Irish LGBTQ+ people.⁶⁰⁶¹ She once said that "I'm making music for the girls and the gays, and that's it."¹⁷ She was described as a "bisexual icon" by Charlie Duncan of PinkNews.⁶⁰⁶²

CMAT lives in Hackney, London, with a roommate, Mia, and a pit bull named Paris.⁵⁹