The UK's top selling album group of the 21st century, Westlife, today announce that they will be touring the UK and Ireland for the first time in seven years next May, June and July.

Celebrating Westlife's 20th anniversary, 'The Twenty Tour' will kick off in Belfast on 25th May, with the run of live shows ending in Dublin on 5th July.

The shows will see the global pop kings perform brand new songs, alongside their greatest hits and all 14 of their UK No.1 hits including as 'Swear It Again', ‘Flying Without Wings', ‘You Raise Me Up’ and 'Unbreakable'.

Shane, Nicky, Mark and Kian announced their return to music two weeks ago to a frenzy of media coverage and social media activity. The band have signed a new record deal with Virgin EMI, and will release new music soon.

These shows will be their first as a group since they played Croke Park in Dublin on 23rd June 2012.

Westlife have sold over 55 million records worldwide, and are the only band to have their first 7 singles enter the UK chart at No.1. They also have the most singles of any artist to debut at No.1 in the UK. Overall the band have had an incredible 14 No.1 singles, behind only Elvis Presley and The Beatles. They have had 33 No.1 albums worldwide.

As a live act Westlife have sold 5 million concert tickets worldwide. They still hold the record for the most shows played at The SSE Arena, Wembley - 28. They sold out Croke Park Stadium in a record breaking 5 minutes. They also hold the record for the most shows played at The SSE Arena, Belfast by any band - 50.

Fans that pre-order a copy of the forthcoming new Westlife album from the official store before 12pm BST on Monday 22nd October will receive an exclusive pre-sale code for early access tickets to the 2019 UK & Ireland tour.

Pre-sale starts at 9AM Tuesday 23rd October with general on-sale tickets available from Thursday 25th October at 9AM.

UK & Ireland Official Store Link - https://shop.westlife.com

The dates announced today are:

Sat 25 May: Belfast SSE Arena
Sun 26 May: Belfast SSE Arena
Thu 30 May: Manchester Arena
Fri 31 May: Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
Mon 03 June: Glasgow The SSE Hydro
Fri 07 June: Sheffield Fly DSA Arena
Mon 10 June: Leeds First Direct Arena
Thu 13 June: London The O2
Tue 18 June: Nottingham Motorpoint Arena
Fri 21 June: Birmingham Arena
Tue 25 June: Liverpool Echo Arena
Fri 5th July: Dublin Croke Park