Like many of us, I have lots of relations in America. They’re good people and, as a kid, I always looked forward to them coming back to Ireland for a holiday.
They brought me cool American comics that you couldn’t get in this country back then. I’d usually be thrown a few bucks as well, so, I was always extremely fond of the US branch of our family tree. But I would never allow them anywhere a voting booth in this country.
One of them, who is sadly no longer with us, was a tough-talking ‘Noo Yoik’ cop who liked to regale me with war stories from his time on the mean streets. He was a hard-drinking, hard-living, hard-edged sort of guy who was also, back in the day, a keen supporter of Noraid.
That lone bar fly you get talking to:
My Dad’s lot were from Longford,
You begin, Ancient Mariner style,
My Mum’s from Castlebar:
Pause while you buy him a pint
(Kid yourself on that his quivering
Smile’s an encouraging grin),
Follow through with your
The problem with Shane MacGowan Former Pogues frontman holds up a mirror to the worst aspects of Irish emigration
Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 01:29 Michael O Loughlin
Shane MacGowan “writes about the wrong kind of Irish: drunks, rent boys, punks, brawlers, jailbirds”. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Back in the 1980s, an RTÉ crew interviewed me in Amsterdam, where I’d already been living for a few years, for a segment on the Irish diaspora. When the interview was over, I went on to speak enthusiastically to the director about my newest discovery, the recently released Pogues album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. I had been listening to with keen interest, as it seemed to capture something of the essence of the Irish emigrant experience. Beneath the punkish clatter, Shane MacGowan’s lyrics displayed a sophistication and ambition rare in the Irish music and literature o