CELTIC CRUSH 20TH ANNIVERSARY ON SIRIUSXM RADIO

About twenty years ago, I happened to be in the right place at the right time. I was visiting the Sirius Satellite Radio headquarters for an interview with Meg Griffin, head of the Disorder Channel. I was promoting a memoir, Green Suede Shoes, and the release of an associated Black 47 CD, Elvis Murphy’s Green Suede Shoes.

Meg and I were friends from the downtown Punk days, and after the interview we were laughing and bantering in the corridor of the 36^th Floor as a top executive, Steve Blatter, strode by. 

We exchanged a few words and, noticing my accent, Steve called Meg to one side; she soon returned inquiring, “Would you be interested in hosting a weekly Celtic show?”

I’d always loved radio and I had done countless interviews with Black 47 - it seemed like a gig made in heaven.

Meg mentioned that the Sirius Celtic collection was pretty scant, so a couple of days later I showed up with a backpack full of CDs and a list of songs for a 3-hour show. I decided to adapt the old  WNEW-FM system: play 3 songs and then talk about whatever came to mind. 

I called the show Celtic Crush, as I would be mixing songs and styles from across the Celtic world, while hopefully adding a seasoning of the radio romance that had swept me away as a boy.

Meg taught me how to use the controls, and gave me hints on how to balance a show, like “keep to the point,” but let inspiration guide me.

I had been influenced by many hosts from the golden days of FM radio, but three in particular: Vin Scelsa, Alison Steele and Meg herself. All three were masters of improv.

Black 47 was an improv band – we never did the same set twice, we just lived in the moment and trusted in the ongoing dynamic between band and audience. 20 years later I still use that sixth sense of communication to propel each Celtic Crush show.

I begin each show with a 5-minute intro that usually sets the tone of the show. I rarely play a song from the previous week, and I always add new songs, so that the show is always fresh to me, and hopefully to the audience.

Celtic Crush is about songs, not artists, and I encourage musicians submitting material to be daring with their choices. Because I’ve been on the road for most of my life, I tend to know or have first-hand knowledge of many artists. But I don’t deal in gossip, only their musical history as I understand it.

The idea is to find and nurture “future classics.” These can be recordings from as far back as 100 years. In last year’s listener’s Top 100 poll, Sean Ó’Riada’s mystical live version of Aisling Gheal from 1971 was voted #3, and Celtic Crush has been the first in the US to play such current popular favorites as Lankum, Kneecap, Fontaines DC, Jiggy, The Mary Wallopers, and so many more.

Instead of just looking back to the original 8 Celtic nations I’m as interested in the diaspora from each and how new lands have influenced immigrant music. 

As for my commentaries I delve into history, politics, literature, theatre and memory. One of the touchstones of being a SiriusXM host is that your show may be heard in any part of the US or Canada, so you must speak to audiences way beyond your own locality.

I have my own political views and they include being a small “r” and “d” republican and democrat, so I speak my mind in these troublesome authoritarian times, while trying not to do so in an abrasive manner. 

The last message each week is to encourage listeners to reach out to one person in his/her circle and help put a dent in the epidemic of loneliness that afflicts modern life.

After 20 years, Celtic Crush is still a joy to host and produce, and no matter what mood I’m in before I record, I invariably feel uplifted after. What more can one ask for? Ah yes, the ongoing magic of radio!

 

SiriusXM is the largest audio entertainment company in North America and has approximately 34 million subscribers in the US and Canada. It is subscription based and is available through satellite or online. It offers over 200 channels, including commercial-free music, sports, news, talk, and entertainment. To sign up for SiriusXM, or for a free trial option, visit www.siriusxm.com or call1-866-635-2349.

DAVID JOHANSEN, JACK O'LEARY, JOE STRUMMER & ALL MY INFLUENCERS!

 There are a number of building blocks in any reasonably successful rock ‘n’ roll band. First of course, are the musicians themselves, followed closely by a loyal tech crew. Add a dogged and dedicated agent and you’re off to the races.

Some swear by a good manager, but if you haven’t learned how to manage yourself after a couple of years, then you haven’t been looking or listening – besides adding a manager’s 15% off the top to an agent’s 10%, means you’ll take very little home. Forget about hiring a PR person, just favor a united Ireland and oppose an American war and you’ll get all the publicity you need.

That being said, you’re going nowhere unless you have a loyal fanbase led by superfans. 10 years after Black 47 disbanded I can still summon up the faces in the first two rows in most American cities. Many still stay in touch.

But there’s another, somewhat more exalted breed, that really made a difference, I called them influencers, long before every Tom, Dick and Harry debased the title. I lost some of mine recently.

I first met Jack O’Leary when I was 18 and playing a pub in Wexford. I was singing “Donna, Donna,” a little-known ballad; no one was listening - except Jack. During a break he complimented my taste, and stated that “Donna, Donna” was an old Jewish folk song. 

From that moment on we were linked. Jack seemed to know every song that had any bit of soul or history to it, and was determined to pass on his knowledge.

He worked on the Rosslare/Fishguard ferries, and on his time off attended most of my gigs.

I can still picture him roaming around pubs, resplendent in a well-cut grey suit, pint in hand, swaying to the music, and encouraging me to try new songs, especially my own.

He was an excellent singer of sea-chanteys and could have gained a PhD in the semi-mystical songs of the merchant-marine songwriter, Cyril Tawney.

He came to London when Black 47 opened for The Pogues at their remarkable Christmas show in 1990. There I introduced him to Joe Strummer. Backstage they talked non-stop, head to head at the bar. When Jack finally took a toilet break, Joe turned to me and said, “Where did you find him, guy knows more about music than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Like many other commercial sailors Jack had little time for religion, still I fancy I can see him, pint in hand, wheedling his way into heaven by entertaining St. Peter with a lusty version of Tawney’s “Five Foot Flirt.”

Joe himself died way too young; although he was recognized as the Prince of Punk, he had an inexhaustible knowledge of popular music. For about 6 months he came to every Black 47 gig in Paddy Reilly’s. It was a rare night we didn’t introduce a new song, and Joe took delight in mentioning its “obvious” influences. Even when I’d tell him none of us ever heard of such arcane writers, he’d say, “Makes no difference, man, music is universal and we’re all linked.” He always had a friendly suggestion for how we could make a song better. But just knowing Joe was listening made you better anyway. 

He never mentioned The Clash but he often spoke about Thomas Moore’s Minstrel Boy, and how someday he hoped to improve on Paul Robeson’s magisterial interpretation; he eventually did in the soundtrack for Black Hawk Down.

David Johansen’s mother was a Cullen from Staten Island. I noticed him on the streets of the East Village not long after I arrived in the US. Handsome, rakish and convivial, he had been vocalist for The New York Dolls and became big daddy to many New York musicians. He used to drink in Tramps, Terry Dunne’s bar on 15^thStreet. ‘Twas there he developed his alter-ego, Buster Poindexter. 

He guested on the Black 47 track, Staten Island Baby. Talk about a pro, he made that song his own. As he left the studio, veteran producer/engineer Stewart Lerman murmured, “I learned more in the last 2 hours from Dave than I did in the past 20 years.”

I miss my influencers – they gave so much of themselves and asked for so little in return.

ROCKIN' THE BRONX - A NOVEL & ODE TO BAINBRIDGE AVENUE

 The scene in the Irish Bronx between the 1970’s and the 1990’s was so wild and in-your-face, I figured it would last forever. It never occurred to me that by the end of the century all the temples of intemperance where I used to play would have morphed into nail salons and bodegas.

 

This Irish Bronx stretched from The Concourse up to Yonkers, and from the Hudson River to God knows where. But it definitely contained Kingsbridge and Fordham Roads, and the immortal Braindamage (Bainbridge) Avenue, circa 204^th Street. Only God again knows how many bars thrived on those rugged boulevards, for they changed names and owners with dizzying frequency.

 

I began my Bronx career with Turner & Kirwan of Wexford in the mid-70’s at Durty Nelly’s on Kingsbridge Road. We had been making a name for ourselves down in Greenwich Village and were approached by a rogue with a twinkle in his eye from Carrick-on-Suir. Phil Delaney booked us for Nelly’s and we found our way to Kingsbridge one Indian summer’s evening.

 

The place was jammed, everyone awaiting these “Village Superstars” as we were billed. After a few tokes out in the van for inspiration, we took to the stage and blasted into our psychedelic 20-minute version of The Foggy Dew; we had them Paddies rocking for about 90 minutes until I noticed Phil waving at us like a baseball umpire. 

 

“Will yez, for Jaysus sake, take a break,” he screamed. “We’ve barely sold a drink since yez started playing!” Thus, did we learn that flogging booze trumped all artistic pretensions on Kingsbridge.

 

Back then, the scene was still run by those who had emigrated in the 1950’s. They preferred the showband 3 slow/3 fast dance sets; jiving was still the rage, ladies in dresses, gentlemen in suits, all of whom discreetly disguised their level of inebriation. 

 

As the 80’s rolled in, however, and economic depression deepened in Ireland, a new breed arrived – mostly undocumented who worked long hours for cash on Manhattan building sites; they were joined by many from the North who had gone toe to toe with the British Army. 

 

The tastes of these “New Irish” had broadened to the Punk of The Undertones and the Trad of Planxty. Most of them drank like fish and in the words of a local wag seemed “neither here nor there.” Always looking back at Ireland, but in no hurry to return. I knew what they were going through for I had decided I was never going home permanently again.

 

In my four-hour stints onstage, I had much time to observe the new arrivals, and one night in The Village Pub I had an epiphany: they were enacting a story that no one else had yet dealt with in any literary form. This was around the beginning of the 80’s. Pierce Turner and I had formed a new wave band, Major Thinkers, and were doing well downtown, but money being tight, we’d moonlight up in The Bronx. 

 

The drinking was beyond ferocious and the signs of burnout were all around. I had little doubt I was on the same road to ruin. Why had I come to New York in the first place? To “make it?” That was happening - Major Thinkers were about to sign with Epic Records, tour with Cyndi Lauper and UB40; still, I was uneasy about my life’s direction. I began writing plays and was fumbling around for subject matter.

 

Onstage in The Bronx I wondered about the stories of the young immigrants. I began to question them between sets, and in the long, liquid post-gig hours before I’d head home to the East Village. 

 

Most of my interviewees had left Ireland because in the words of The Sex Pistols there was “no future”. Others had quit from boredom or broken hearts, while those from the North were tired of being second-class citizens in their own occupied country. 

 

Were they happy in The Bronx? Well, they had everything they needed, pockets full of cash, bars where they were welcome, diners with good food, county matches at Gaelic Park on Sundays, the occasional Christy Moore concert, even sex with like-minded others freed from the conventions of home. 

 

Life was full, but there was an emptiness too: they didn’t trust their closest neighbors, the Puerto Ricans and Irish-Americans, and few took advantage of New York’s many opportunities. Why bother? They had their own private universe in The Bronx.

 

The years passed. Major Thinkers got dropped by Epic Records, and Pierce and I parted amicably. I leaped off the merry-go-round of “making it” and became a full-time playwright. I still needed to make money, so I often returned to The Bronx to pick up a gig or two. Everyone had gotten a little older, but I still listened to their stories during breaks. 

 

I was learning my theatre craft, writing, directing, and producing my own plays and musicals. And then one night Chris Byrne and I formed Black 47, and before I knew it I was back full-time on Braindamage Avenue. Our music was not only political but we intended to become a fully original band ASAP. We had need of songs, especially those relevant to our immigrant audience.

 

I drew from the stories I had been told during breaks; the songs were mostly character-driven and told a story. Among them were “Funky Ceili,” “Banks of The Hudson,” “Fanatic Heart”, and “Rockin’ The Bronx.” 

 

One was called, “Sleep Tight in New York City,” it told the story of Sean Kelly who had left rural Ireland to find his girlfriend, Mary Devine, in The Bronx. She hadn’t written and he feared the worst. When he does find her he discovers her problem, and has to change his own life and expectations. He must also accept Danny McClory, a gay construction worker with an IRA past, and rambunctious Kate from County Mayo, the heroine of Black 47’s “Livin’ in America.” 

 

Rockin’ The Bronx was done with some success as a play, but in order to capture the complexities of New York I adapted it to a novel. Some readers may recognize themselves or others in the characters. 

 

One person I barely changed was Brian Mór, the artist and political activist, he’s easily identified as Benny, the bouncer at the traditional bar, The Gallowglass (The Bunratty). Why? Because Brian looked after me in real life, much the way he looks out for bull-headed Sean Kelly in the book; then again, it took me years to realize that I had often based Sean on my own shortcomings.

 

Rockin’ The Bronx captures The Bronx in all its unvarnished glory around the time of the deaths of John Lennon and Bobby Sands. It was something that I’d set out to do on that night of Epiphany in the Village Pub. Fordham University Press recognized the value of the story, and now we finally have a written account of what we were up to in those wild years. 

 

Rockin’ The Bronx went on sale last week. For those who were there it will bring back memories, for those who weren’t, it’s full of laughs, loss, dreams, drink, politics, music and, most importantly, hope.

 

At the book’s end, Sean comes to the conclusion: “The Bronx had been far from easy on me. It had pruned and tempered my expectations. I arrived a boy and was leaving a man, a little scarred perhaps, but a great deal wiser; yet I had no doubt that my years spent on its bristling streets would stand to me down all the days to come.”

 

Rockin’ The Bronx can be ordered at all stores and at Amazon and all digital outlets.
https://www.fordhampress.com/ is offering a discount of 25% off, plus free shipping (paperback and eBook). Use code ROCKIN25-FI   Autographed copies of the book can be purchased at SHOP at www.black47.com

CONGESTION PRICING ON CANAL

Canal Street in Lower Manhattan runs just over a mile from East Broadway to West Street. It’s big, broad and bustling and many the famous person from Alexander Hamilton to Lou Reed has walked the wild side on its well-worn cobblestones and concrete. 

 

Until recently, it was one of the most dangerous streets in New York though neither the Post nor Fox thought it worthwhile to mention. 

 

Canal Street put the shivers in you because from the Manhattan Bridge to the Holland Tunnel it was jammed to the gills with cars and trucks. You took your life in your hands crossing that street of dreams.

 

With only the occasional cop in attendance, drivers used traffic lights as suggestions rather than hard and fast rules. Pedestrians were treated as mere extras in the movies of these mostly out-of-city drivers. 

 

Meanwhile, mired in its automobile adoration, New York City authorities still only allow the barest of time for pedestrians to make it across the street. You get a couple of seconds of a white “walk” light before a countdown of “run for your life” in flashing red. I once saw a hobbling elderly gentleman hoist his crutches over his shoulders and race betwixt and between honking cars to the unguaranteed safety of the opposite curb.

 

All changed, utterly changed since we unworthy sprinters were granted congestion pricing. Traffic is suddenly silent and gently flowing like the Hudson River. 

 

Time to celebrate, you might ask? Hardly for King Donald down in DC has decreed that he prefers the choked streets, poisonous fumes, the honking, and the occasional life and limb sacrificed to the great god, Automobile.

 

Unlike Alexander and Lou this former denizen of Queens likely never spent much time on wild and wooly Canal Street; what need hath he for the brittle Manhattan Bridge or the jam-packed Holland Tunnel in whatever gigantic SUV he’s been towed around in? 

 

The vast majority of us who live in Manhattan wouldn’t be caught dead owning a car. Where are you going to park it? Instead, we take the subways – or walk – and now, hallelujah, the aforementioned subways will be financed by those who insist on driving in below 60^th Street.

 

You don’t like subways? I assure you they’re much safer than the congested streets. I know, they smell occasionally and there’s always a chance you’ll share a car or platform with a disturbed person.

 

But then, how much crazier is someone who texts while driving? I know you’d never do that, but many do. In fact, in the bad old pre-congestion pricing days, one of the essentials crossing Canal was to gain eye contact with furious drivers trapped by red lights, but already revving up for their next 3 miler per hour dash. 

 

Gaining the attention of these Formula One wannabes was never as easy as it sounds, for many heads were locked downwards in mid-text forcing you to roar your loudest New York “YOH!” 

 

One thing I never would have predicted with congestion pricing is that Canal Street foot traffic would increase, leading to more crowded stores and happier merchants. 

 

Tucked in between expensive Soho and Tribeca, Canal was always a haven for bargain hunters. From Chinese jewelry to Lebanese suitcases, Italian cannoli, to the finest of sub-Saharan counterfeit Chanel, Prada and Gucci, we have it all – and you can bargain in up to 40 languages.

 

On the south-east corner of Church and Canal, known locally as Senegal Alley you can experience the finest beat-driven devotional music by Youssou N’Dour and Salif Keita, and you now can hear it all without the ongoing accompaniment of honking horns.

 

How pleasing to finally stroll in the footsteps of Hamilton and Reed through streets originally designed for horse and carriage.

 

I can only think of one comparable New York City edict that made a real difference to the lives of its citizens – the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. 

 

So be aware Mayor Adams, Mr. Cuomo and others seeking the mayoralty, there are many of us who won’t even consider voting for you without your guarantee of support for congestion pricing.

Now if we could only make the same threat to “Yer man from Queens” in the White House. But he knows New York City would never vote for him anyway.

RUTH SANGER - THE MOST SUCCESSFUL IRISH-AMERICAN?

Who was the most successful Irish-American? 

In my book, she was a fugitive, a prisoner, vivacious, beloved, despised, and competitive; she continually challenged church, state, and the mulishness of men. 

She was married twice, had many partners, enjoyed sex into her 80’s, and set out to change society upon watching her tubercular Irish-born mother die at age 49 after 11 childbirths and 7 miscarriages.

In short, she believed that every woman should have the right to decide how many children to have, while still enjoying sex. Her name was Margaret Sanger, known to her oldest friends as Maggie Higgins.

Margaret Louise Higgins was born in Corning, NY in 1879. She was the sixth of the eleven surviving children of Michael and Anne Purcell Higgins. Both parents had emigrated from Ireland in the years following the Great Hunger.

Michael “Marble” Higgins was a stonecutter and a free thinker. Though times were tough, there was no shortage of books in the Higgins household. Maggie was bright, and after her elder sisters paid her way through high school she studied nursing at White Plains Hospital.

There she contacted TB but married William Sanger, an architect. Against medical advice, she managed to have two children, but when their fine house in Westchester burned down, the family moved to New York City.

Both she and William became members of the mainly middle-class Socialist Party. She worked as a nurse in the fetid immigrant slums of the Lower East Side, and was appalled at the unsanitary conditions, and how women were forced to deal with frequent childbirth, miscarriages and self-induced abortions. 

She became a member of the International Workers of the World (The Wobblies) and forged a strong bond with another second-generation Irish-American, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Flynn’s father  was also a stonecutter and even more of a free-thinker.

Together these two fiery young women became leaders of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lowell, MA and won a great victory for the impoverished textile workers. However, a year later, they rushed into a poorly financed strike in Patterson, NJ, and were no match for the power and resources of Wall Street and the Silk industry. 

Despite rising political and industrial agitation nationwide, it became apparent to Sanger that there could be no real societal change while women were unable to plan their pregnancies. Contraception was illegal and, with few exceptions, doctors wanted no part of it.

She began challenging the Comstock Act by mailing information on contraception through her magazine, The Woman Rebel. Sentenced to jail, she escaped to England at the outbreak of World War I. While there, she learned more about European methods of contraception and before she returned to the US to serve her sentence, she arranged to import diaphragms.

In 1916, Sanger, along with her sister Ethel Byrne, opened the first American birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. It was an immediate success with the local Jewish and Italian immigrant women.  But 9 days later, the sisters were arrested, Byrne went on a 185-hour hunger strike before being force-fed, the first American woman to face such a fate.

The case became a national sensation. Byrne was pardoned, and Sanger was offered a more lenient sentence if she promised not to break the law again. When she refused she was sent back to jail.

But in 1918, a New York Court of Appeals ruled that New York doctors could offer contraceptives to their patients. This victory caused many donors to open their purses to the growing birth control movement; Sanger became a household name while challenging authorities in searing speeches across the country.

She formed Planned Parenthood and many millions of women have since availed of its services. She did not favor abortion, feeling that if contraception was available, there would be little need for it. 

She led a long contentious life always promoting feminist issues. She married a wealthy industrialist, James Noah Snee, who subsidized her causes as she moved easily through all strata of society, but her greatest wish was that every woman should have easy access to affordable contraceptives.

This happened shortly before her death in 1966 when contraceptives were finally declared legal for married couples, and the long hoped for birth control pill became universally available. 

After watching her mother’s exhausted death, the dream of the stonecutter’s daughter became a reality for Maggie Higgins, arguably the most successful Irish-American.

MANCHESTER UNITED AND PHIL CHEVRON

 Like many people from Ireland I support an English football team.

As I brace myself for sneers of contempt curried by hollow words of patronizing pity, okay, I admit it – I’m a Man U guy.

I wasn’t always so self-effacing. We used to be the best, like a mix between Jeter’s Yankees and the recently deposed Chiefs.

Now my Red Devils are famous for two things: being overpaid and unable to score goals. Still, as much as I abhor their style of play, I can’t stop supporting them. Why, I ask myself? I’ve never even set foot in Manchester.

I do love the city of Liverpool and even have a sneaking fondness for Liverpool FC - for this treason I could be gelded in any self-respecting Man U supporters saloon. So I guess I’m hooked, and stuck with a team of overpaid losers.

My weekend mornings are ruined by their failures. I can no longer even watch them, I just sneak glances at the BBC text of their games, and am often forced to take to the streets in solitary, freezing walks while they meander aimlessly around a near collapsing Old Trafford.

What happened to the glory days of Roy Keane and David Beckham, you might ask? Gone, alas, with my youth too soon.

There are times I think of my departed friend, Phil Chevron of The Pogues – not that he would have given me the least sympathy. His eyes gleamed in disdain, and his lip curled upwards when the subject of Man U arose. He had a succinct Dublin way of dismissing my team with two or three unprintable adjectives.

He should talk! He was a life-long supporter of Nottingham Forest, so addicted he quit London, bought a house in Nottingham to be close to his team.

That would be akin to me deserting Manhattan for Scranton - an awful thing to say, for Black 47 was beloved in Molly Maguires country. 

I never even questioned Phil about his own team addiction; in general we steered clear of football issues in the backstage hullaballoo of music festivals.

We became friends through our shared love of theatre. His father had been an actor/producer, and Phil was “steeped in the stage,” as he once put it.

We had met in London in 1990 when Black 47 opened for The Pogues, then arguably the best live band in the world. But we didn’t really click until a mutual friend, Johnny Byrne, brought us together at Joe Allen’s restaurant on 47^th Street in the thick of Broadway.

Talk about an addictive personality! Phil liked to fly from London to New York on a Friday morning, attend a Broadway show after an early dinner. Have lunch with Johnny and me in Joe Allen’s on Saturday, catch a matinee, then sneak in a nap before seeing a show that night. On Sunday he’d enjoy another matinee, then hop a cab to Kennedy and be back in London in the morning.

He was the gay Pogue, and he was proud as punch about it. He was working on a musical about an Irish-American boxer. It was well written, there was interest, and why not? Phil was a master songwriter – listen to Thousands Are Sailing or Faithful Departed, the images he conjures come sailing past you larger than life and to the point – like the man himself.

He was honest to a fault and never saw a reason to hide the truth. You always knew where you stood with Phil, even when you didn’t want to.

I keep an eye on Nottingham Forest for him. They’re going gangbusters this year, and there’s an excellent chance they’ll make the Champion’s League. It’s one of life’s ironies that Phil won’t be in his usual season-ticket seat at City Ground finally vindicated, while reveling in Man U’s ongoing banality.

But I don’t have the least doubt that he’s driving all the straight saints crazy up in heaven with his “constructive” criticisms, and his constant weekend demands to change the channel to “the only team that matters.”

Maybe I should just dump Man. U and support Nottingham Forest – it’s not quite as bad as converting to Liverpool. But it doesn’t work like that. 

You know what I’m talking about, Phil, up there in Valhalla arm-in-arm with the immortal Brian Clough, beaming down on your beloved and finally triumphant Forest.

FROM THE SONG SLEEP TIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY TO THE NOVEL ROCKIN' THE BRONX

Fordham University Press will publish Rockin' The Bronx on March 3rd, 2025

The novel, Rockin’ The Bronx, came directly from the Black 47 song, Sleep Tight in New York City (https://youtu.be/-7yt6zKLjZs?si=HHFjt-ROuSQQlJri ). In the song, Sean Kelly, a young man in rural Ireland is addressing his girlfriend, Mary Devine, who has emigrated to The Bronx. He can’t understand why she doesn’t write or call, they had been so close. He senses something is terribly wrong and in the song he visualizes what that might be. When they were together in Ireland Sean always looked out for Mary, but now he feels that someone, or something, has taken his place, and he is bitterly resentful. 

I got the inspiration for the song while traveling through NW Donegal, marveling at the beauty of the coastline and comparing it to the concrete fields of The Bronx. Performing this song was very intense, for you had to become Sean, and feel what he felt; such is the way with character-driven songs and Black 47 had many. Words alone couldn’t nail all the emotions, so we often stretched out the instrumental passages and found Sean’s loneliness and loss within the improvisation. 

As we performed the song over many years, the story began to solidify, until I began to divine Mary ’s secret and the dramatic ending of the story that I would eventually write as the novel, Rockin’ The Bronx.

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AFTERNOON DELIGHT AT THE IRISH ARTS CENTER!!

The Irish Arts Center houses one of the best bars and lobbies in New York City. A saloon of sorts, it’s all about conversation. There are no racks of televisions distracting you – it’s a special place where you can mingle with peers, punters, and others with a love for Irish culture and theatre.

Like many, I don’t get out as much as I used to but that’s okay, because at the IAC I usually run into 30 or so people I know - or should know - and many’s the confidence is exchanged over some well-pulled pints.

On a recent afternoon I met friends and acquaintances from all over the US, Ireland and the UK as we gathered for Culture Ireland’s Meet The Irish 2025. It featured six Irish theatre companies showcasing  their work, courtesy of this driven and benevolent Irish Government organization.

Culture Ireland has been in operation for 20 years and their brief is to fund Irish artists and arts organizations, and help them promote their work worldwide. 

Led by indefatigable director, Sharon Barry, they do an outstanding job. So far, they have awarded over 9000 grants to the tune of €84m.

The list of those they’ve assisted is vast and consists of household names and “complete unknowns,” to quote Bob Dylan.

Like many New York artists I’ve never been blessed with, nor applied for, any kind of grant, so I doff my hat to the Irish government in its willingness to promote home-grown artists – money well invested that will return all sorts of dividends.

Not that any of the six acts I saw at the IAC seemed spoiled or spoon-fed, the cost and scars of developing their art were evident, but each showed a desire to portray the new Ireland they inhabit.

Confident, fearless, provocative, passionate - the work I saw often delighted in banishing shadows and exposing what lay behind them in the old Ireland.

One surprise, there was little in the way of broad politics on display, although sexuality, gender, identity, intellectual development, family, and other topics received bracing treatments. Then again, take away the issue of race, and you could say much the same for current American theatre.

Each company in their short, allotted time tackled their particular subject, or obsession, with such depth that certain thoughts and images still spring to mind.

I found Bellow, the opening piece, very moving. It examined the life commitment to Traditional Irish Music of ace accordion player, Danny O’Mahony, through the prism of Brokentalkers, a modern experimental theatre group. Gerry Keegan was an accomplished and ever-probing guide and interrogator.

Grace, a play for young people, will touch anyone who has cared for a person with developmental issues. It concerns a father and daughter who have no need of words to communicate. When the father dies, Grace must find new ways of “talking.” But then, “love doesn’t need words. You can just feel it.” And we did.

Gina Moxley looked, sounded, cajoled and provoked like some of the artists at the old Dance Theatre Workshop in Chelsea. I look forward to seeing a full production of her I Fall Down – A Restoration Comedy. She’s funny, irreverent, and just what you need if you’re suffering from a case of the blahs. I regret not meeting her over a pint.

I’d always wondered what Mark O’Rowe’s work was like, and then realized I’d already read a review of Reunion. This “zinger of a play” is probably the closest to “regular” theatre. Given its universal theme of family reunion, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it ensconced someday at a large Off-Broadway house.

Illness As Metaphor is based on the Susan Sontag book that caused a sensation in New York some years back. Dead Centre, a much toured and acclaimed theatre group, deals not so much with illness, but the language used to describe illness in a serious but witty manner. I still shiver when I think of this gripping piece, for it addresses trials many of us will face.

London-Irish woman Emer Dineen exploded onto stage in 0800 Cupid by THISISPOPBABY – a cross between Freddy Mercury and Cáit O’Riordan in drag. Her hymn to Jesus was electric, honest, and a fine song that stands on its own merits. I did have a pint with her and can’t wait to have more.

What a way to spend a cold Monday afternoon. Thank you, IAC and Culture Ireland.

WELCOME TO THE NEW AMERICA

 So here we go again. Round 2 with President Trump. 

I have little doubt that he is the most influential American politician of the last 80 or so years. But this is the America we live in: where self-entitlement, whining, and lying are more important than self-sacrifice, a degree of modesty, and trying to make life better for your fellow citizens.

I sometimes wonder if the pandemic wiped away some of our ability to focus on the  preceding years?

I recall the first Trump presidency as a time of unmitigated chaos. In fairness, Mr. Trump himself seemed shell-shocked when it became apparent that he was about to become president.

He was inheriting a first class economy that during the Obama years had gained over 10 million jobs, unemployment was down to a low 4.7%, 15 millions more Americans had health insurance and the S&P 500 was up 166%.

Apart from the continuous lies, about-faces and narcissism of the Trump years I remember three major events. A 35-day shutdown of the US Government over building the wall that he boasted Mexico would fund – that fit of infantile pique cost the country $11billion; the ripping up of a hard earned nuclear treaty with Iran, and of course the pandemic itself when our president folded, amid suggestions like shooting up disinfectant as a solution.

He's never been a great man for a crisis, but he does have streaks of luck – how amazing none of them coincided with his casino ventures; but once more he has inherited another first class economy.

President Biden might not have been able to keep eggs at a reasonable price, but in his four years he has created 16 million jobs, unemployment averaged around 4%, while the S&P 500 has gone through the roof.

The problem with President Trump is knowing when to believe him. Then again, he doesn’t appear to know himself. During the recent campaign he promised to slash grocery prices immediately he gained office. 

Now he’s admitting that such a task will be “very hard.” No one seems to have informed him that if he follows his two big campaign pledges – to introduce tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, plus deport great swathes of immigrants -– prices and inflation will inevitably soar again.

But is there a method to his madness? Perhaps all his threats and bluster have been designed to cause “fake news” journalists to fling their laptops at the wall and head for the pub.

He’s definitely serious about reducing taxes - just like every other billionaire. 

The Trump Tax cuts of 2017 provided the top 20% of earners over 65% of the benefits (the top 1% netted approximately 20%). But in such matters, he’s very democratic - every taxpayer got a smidgin of relief; the problem was, the country couldn’t afford it.

The current national debt is $35 trillion and the annual interest that we’re collectively forking out has now reached serious proportions.

Still, the main thrust of the new Trump presidency will be another tax give-away that, along with other campaign promises, could up the national debt to well over $40 trillion. Hey, they don’t call him the King of Debt for nothing. 

 

No wonder he’s hanging down in Mar-a-Lago with Musk and Bezos – both of whom have rockets that can leave this debt-ridden, blazing country behind and zoom off to tax-free Mars.

I hope he’s budgeting mucho trillions for the climate catastrophes he’ll soon be dealing with. Makes you wonder why he’d want to be president – maybe he does actually believe extreme weather is all a hoax!

What does America stand for anymore? I used to think I knew.

Then I look back at the footage from January 6, 2021. I see a mob of half-addled “patriots” summoned to DC by a venal man who refused to accept the will of the voters.

I see some of that mob using American flags to beat policemen whose job it is to protect the Capitol. 

I see more of that mob searching for the Vice-President with intent to do him harm, and I know that President Trump sat on his hands rather than call in the national guard to safeguard lives and the constitution. 

And now President Trump, who could not beat his own felony charges, intends to grant pardons to convicted members of that mob. But then, maybe he’s lying about that too. 

Welcome to the new America. 

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN - DON'T LOOK BACK

The old Philips tube radio was my best friend in those Wexford boyhood days. It took a couple of minutes to warm up but then it delivered the sweetest, fullest sound. And on a particular evening I had it blazing, for I was alone in my grandfather’s house.

From the first notes of a new song - a big jumble of Hammond organ, Fender Stratocaster, and an in-your-face New York rhythm section - I knew the world was changing. By the time Bob Dylan sang, I knew he had changed too, for he was no longer the polite folkie apologizing, “look out your window and I’ll be gone;” instead, he was sneering a caustic kiss-off, “How does it feel to be on your own... a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”

It was a Rock ‘n’ Roll moment I’ve treasured down the years. Within a week I’d learned the full four verses, and have sung them well over a thousand times. A gig can be falling on its face, but that song can always turn around a saloon, a club or even a stadium.

So, I was leery about seeing A Complete Unknown with Timothée Chalamet as the young Dylan who went electric with that song, and turned the 1965 Newport Folk Festival on its ear.

His portrayal of Dylan is excellent, as far as it goes. He definitely captures the confident young singer who hitches from Minnesota to Greenwich Village, and in short order becomes the reigning prince of Folk City, Café Wha and wherever else acoustic guitars were plucked.

There are beautiful moments when he visits Woody Guthrie, wasting away from Huntington’s Disease in a New Jersey Hospital, and assumes his mantle.

His quirky romances with Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez are handled sensitively, and Monica Barbaro as Joan is a knockout both in voice and character. 

Director James Mangold captures the essence of the West Village as “the times they are a’changing,” though much was apparently filmed in Jersey City and Hoboken.

Chalamet even sparks rare glimpses of Dylan’s cyclonic artistic vision, and his refusal to allow anyone to limit it. 

Dylan is still a wonder - even now in his 80’s he’s out there touring, doing it his way. I saw him some years back in unfashionable Bridgeport; after waiting through two long opening acts, most of his boomer audience had drifted off home because he refused to pay homage to his standards. 

He wasn’t even playing guitar anymore, arthritis had choked his hands, but his new songs sounded great. 

I was proud of Dylan. He still didn’t give a fiddler’s, it was his way or the highway, and that’s something Hollywood never captures when it comes to Rock ‘n’ Roll. The vision and toughness of legendary musicians – I am the boss, and I know best.

Chalamet gives it his all but method acting, no matter how good, can only take you so far. You’ve had to have done it to pull it off – to have been there on stage and know that you are right and the rest of the world is wrong.

That’s what’s missing in Chalamet’s very honest portrayal: edge, toughness, hardness, whatever you want to call it. And that only comes from a life on the road, failure, messing up, then picking up the pieces and pushing on. Samuel Beckett summed it up best, “fail better.”

Oddly enough, the actor playing a lit-up Johnny Cash backstage at the Newport Festival does capture that essence; whereas an ever-smiling Ed Norton, though he’s receiving almost universal accolades, doesn’t come close to capturing the Pete Seeger I knew. 

He definitely nails the enveloping warmth and grace of this iconic figure, but not Pete’s craggy patrician nature or, for that matter, his sheer orneriness. Dude stood up to the US Government and wouldn’t name names during the McCarthy witch hunts. He preferred to lose his living and be blacklisted.

Pete was an almost biblical man of principle who didn’t waste smiles – but when you earned one, oh man, did you bask in it.

So, go see Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, it’s a lovely, if innocent, look at a watershed moment in popular culture. 

Then check out Don’t Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker’s unsparing look at Dylan, the hard man of genius. His destiny was to change music and sweep so much else aside, and oh my, did he do so – and spectacularly!