A teenage Galway girl with Japanese heritage will perform the national anthem of Japan ahead of Saturday’s big rugby match at the Aviva Stadium.

Mai Ishihara Mula, from Lower Salthill, will sing ‘Kimigayo’ before kick-off tomorrow at 12.40pm in Ireland’s Autumn International with Japan.

The first year University of Limerick music student will perform in front of 50,000 spectators at the Lansdowne Road venue.

Eighteen-year-old Mai’s rendition will also be beamed to hundreds of thousands of television viewers in Ireland, Japan and other rugby nations.

Mai’s Japanese heritage comes from her mother, Mina Ishihara; and she gets her musical prowess from her father, Javer Mula.

Mina, who is from Osaka in mid-west Japan, first visited Galway as a university student in the mid-1990s.

She liked it and returned in 2003 to work as a bookbinder for Gerry Kenny in Kenny’s Book Bindery, where she put her love of arts, crafts and working with her hands to good use.

To this day, Mina still works at the Liosbán Industrial Estate book bindery with Gerry’s daughter Caroline Redmond and her husband Troy.

Born and reared in Galway, Mai went to school in Educate Together National School in Newcastle and Dominican College secondary school, Taylor’s Hill.

Inspired by her Spanish father Javer, a musician, who plays Irish and flamenco songs, she started to sing in small venues.

Then in April 2023, Mai was chosen to sing at the Japanese Embassy in Dublin at their annual Japan Festival.

That went down well and so when the IRFU came calling in recent weeks, a woman in the embassy recommended Mai to sing the Japanese anthem before the match.

“She’s getting nervous,” said Mina who is proud of her daughter and is looking forward to attending the stadium with Mai.

The game – and Mai’s singing — will be televised live on RTÉ 2.

Pictured: Proud mum: Mina Ishihara, originally from Osaka, Japan, now living in Salthill and working at Kennys Bindery Liosbaun, whose daughter Mai Ishihara Mula, 18, will be singing the Japanese national anthem in the Aviva stadium tomorrow before the Ireland v Japan rugby international. Photo: Brian Harding.