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.