'Boys from the County Hell': how The Pogues helped shape my national identity
By Kieran Moriarty
On the lead up to Christmas, when the infamous 'Fairytale of New York' is on everyone's playlist, Kieran Moriarty shows us there's so much more to discover about The Pogues
I have often felt conflicted about my national identity. I was born and raised in London, but I have an Irish Passport and a strong affinity to my Gaelic heritage. However, the longstanding tension between England and Ireland means my ‘English-ness’ has often presented a barrier to the way in which I engage with Irish culture. Over the years, I have struggled to find a way both sides can co-exist.
Thankfully, I found my answer through music. And that answer was The Pogues.
As an Anglo-Irish band who overcame accusations of appropriating traditional music to become treasured in Ireland and across the world, The Pogues have always held a special place in my heart. Having been fortunate enough to see them three times, these gigs remain some of my most cherished live music experiences - each a blur of booze and noise that were shared with like-minded London-Irish friends. Through the rooting of many of their songs in London via the lens of mass Irish emigration, The Pogues have played a vital role in helping me to reconcile how I engage with Irish culture and establishing my sense of national identity and belonging.
In light of the recent release of Julien Temple’s documentary, ‘Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan’ and the annual recurrence of *that* Christmas song, I have been reflecting on what made The Pogues’ so special. Was it their chaotic reputation? Was it their eclectic sound, an alchemy of traditional Irish folk and punk, which stood them apart from the New Romantics and synth-y sounds of the 80s? Is it the fact they were able to achieve widespread success with music heavily rooted in Irish tradition – an achievement which is impossible to imagine today? (No, Ed Sheeran’s ‘Galway Girl’ does not count.)
As Temple has done, the best place to start is MacGowan. Decades of alcohol and substance abuse has earned him a reputation as one of music’s most notorious hellraisers. Unlike his contemporaries, MacGowan’s alcoholism was not prompted by his dizzying success – he started drinking at five years old. Fame only exacerbated his dependencies on drink and drugs, pushing him to chase terrifying extremes with both that resulted in multiple near-death experiences. As his former bandmate James Fearnley put it, “a stable perception was never reachable, as to whether Shane was a genius or a fucking idiot”. For many, it was the latter. Until you listened to his songs.
Credit: The Pogues, sourced from Portable Press, 2015
Among music fans, critics and his peers, MacGowan is regarded as one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation. Whether its narrating the ancestral experiences of the Irish diaspora, heartfelt odes to former flames, searing vignettes about life on London’s cruel streets or raucous nights on the lash, MacGowan consistently harnessed the lyricism of Irish folk and the harshness of urbanity to great effect.
Take this example from “Lullaby of London” - a song about a drunk father who comes home at night and proceeds to start telling his young son about how he will be fine, while privately hoping that the child will not have to endure the same hardships that he did:
“May the wind that blows from haunted graves
Never bring you misery
May the angels bright
Watch you tonight
And keep you while you sleep”
Pinterest, 2020
I will never fail to wonder how a mind so warped by drink and drugs could have such a beautiful capacity for articulating the tragedy of human existence in all of its extremes. There are countless other examples across The Pogues’ discography where MacGowan conjures a simple tale bursting with vivid imagery through his mastery of language. Bobby Gilespie from Primal Scream summed up this ability best - “he has a brutal eye for detail and he can tell a story in a concise but almost cinematic way using these amazing images that just hit you in the heart with their tenderness and emotion”.
“Those stories are brought to life by MacGowan’s voice = a famously underrated attribute.”
Those stories are brought to life by MacGowan’s voice = a famously underrated attribute. With his mixed upbringing between rural Tipperary and the Home Counties (he was born in England, moved back to Ireland and then returned aged 6), MacGowan’s voice paled in comparison to other Irish folk legends. His singing did not possess the soulfulness of Luke Kelly or the sharpness of Ronnie Drew. In contrast, MacGowan either mangled his poetic lyrics into a drawl or spat them out with contempt.
Yet for a band who existed in a grittier music scene than their traditional counterparts in Ireland, MacGowan’s unrefined voice possessed the edge required for delivering the stories of despair and self-destruction that his songs told. As his close friend Nick Cave puts it, “there was an ongoing struggle between brutality and beauty, both in the way that he sang and the words that he wrote, which was extremely moving and very honest”.
Yet far from being a one-man band, it was a collective effort that enabled The Pogues to secure their position at the pinnacle of Irish folk. The immense talents of Spider Stacy (tin whistle), James Fearnley (accordion), Jeremy Finer (banjo/mandola), Cait O’Riordan (bass) and Andrew Ranken (drums) were pivotal in animating MacGowan’s lyrics and securing The Pogues’ legitimacy.
Like myself, these individuals were English but of Irish heritage – a charge which led to accusations of “cultural imperialism” upon the genre by several folk traditionalists. Yet despite these criticisms, The Pogues were widely accepted by luminaries including Christy Moore and The Dubliners on the merits of their music and reverence for the Irish tradition. To know that these musicians earned that recognition from the great guardians of the genre, regardless of their background, only strengthened my affinity towards the band.
“There’s a lot more to The Pogues than Fairytale of New York.”
The three live gigs that I attended in the 2010s accurately represent the timeline of The Pogues’ career. The first in 2012 at the 02 provided a glimpse of what it must have been like to see them explode onto the scene in 1982. The second at Brixton Academy in 2013 was a throwback to the band at their chaotic pomp. The final show at Hyde Park in 2014, which culminated in a drunk MacGowan falling off the stage, served as a sobering reminder of why it all came to an abrupt end in 1991. Even though I didn’t witness them at the peak of their powers, I feel privileged that I saw them in the final throes of their brilliant career.
The Pogues has been pivotal in allowing me to build and embrace a connection to Irish culture. It is heartening to see how Julien Temple’s documentary celebrates a band who captured the spirit and shaped the culture of the original ‘London-Irish’. I am confident that The Pogues will long continue to provide a gateway to those who are lost and looking for a meaningful way to connect to their Irish heritage.
There’s a lot more to The Pogues than “Fairytale of New York''. If you are looking to expand your folk and punk music horizons, here’s a starter for 10:
1. The Sunnyside of The Street
2. A Rainy Night in Soho
3. Boys from The County Hell
4. Sally McLennane
5. Thousands Are Sailing
6. A Pair of Brown Eyes
7. Streams of Whiskey
8. The Body of An American
9. The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn
10. If I Should Fall From Grace With God
About the author, Kieran Moriarty: Jack of all genres, master of some. Writing articles about great bands to fill the void left by a lack of live music.