Síle Moriarty writes:
On the ninth of March I
met a lady who had attended this talk. She is married to an Irishman and she
told me how the insights given by Dr. Sean Campbell had helped her understand
her husband’s experience of life in this country more closely ‘because he would
never talk about it himself’. Such was the impact of this humorous and
knowledgeable speaker, who started
the evening with a roll call of second generation Irish musicians in popular
music – Lonnie Donegan, Lennon and McCartney, Dusty Springfield (aka Mary
O’Brien), John Lydon, Elvis Costello, Boy George, Oasis, the Smiths were some
of the names mentioned. These people, the sons and daughters of Irish migrants,
did not just perform popular music - they also had a huge influence on its
shape and direction.
Dwellers on the
Threshold: Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England
On the ninth of March I
met a lady who had attended this talk. She is married to an Irishman and she
told me how the insights given by Dr. Sean Campbell had helped her understand
her husband’s experience of life in this country more closely ‘because he would
never talk about it himself’. Such was the impact of this humorous and
knowledgeable speaker, who started
the evening with a roll call of second generation Irish musicians in popular
music – Lonnie Donegan, Lennon and McCartney, Dusty Springfield (aka Mary
O’Brien), John Lydon, Elvis Costello, Boy George, Oasis, the Smiths were some
of the names mentioned. These people, the sons and daughters of Irish migrants,
did not just perform popular music - they also had a huge influence on its
shape and direction.
But Dr. Campbell, himself
second generation Irish, wanted to look below the surface of pop success and
explore how the complexities of being ‘second generation’ were expressed
through music and in doing so he gave us a fresh insight into the challenges
and opportunities faced by the second generation (of whatever nationality).
He chose three bands of
the 1980’s (Dexys Midnight Runners, The Pogues and The Smiths) and through interviews
with individuals in the bands - Keith Rowland (Dexys),Shane MacGowan and Cait
O'Riordan (the Pogues) and Johnny Marr (The Smiths) - and wider research he
showed us how these second generation Irish musicians used the duality of their
cultural heritage as a creative driving force.
He chose 1980’s bands
because, for him, this was the time when the children of the Irish immigrants
of the 50’s and 60’s came of age. It was also a time when relationships between
the UK and Ireland were strained because of the ‘troubles’ and it was the era
of the ‘thick Paddy’ jokes.
These jokes rankled with
many Irish people and Keith Rowland (Dexys Midnight Runners) hit back at them in
Dance Stance where the chorus
references great Irish writers: Oscar Wilde, Brendan Beehan, Sean O’Casey,
George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Gene O’Neil, Edna O’Brien, Laurence Stern.
Rowland said ‘Irish jokes make me sick’, I wanted ‘to show the other side of
being Irish’ and to ‘correct the misunderstanding’. He wanted to address the
British fans and said that it gave him great pleasure when he heard a young
English student singing the chorus of Dance Stance to herself while walking
through campus.
In another song, The
Waltz, Rowland is more direct with
the final line ‘Here is a protest’ being repeated. This song was originally
called Elizabeth Wimpole and Katherine Ní Houlihan to point up the English v Irish nature of its subject
matter but was renamed The Waltz
because Rowlands was afraid of the reception the original would get – although
whether this was from the English or Irish community was not clear.
In a sense Rowlands tried
to mediate between cultures whereas The Pogues, in contrast, tried to evoke the
experience of being London Irish. ‘The Pogues were the first people who helped
define what you could be as a second generation Irish person in this country’
(Martin Mc Donagh). Their songs were very different from the songs of
sentimental longing favoured by the first generation. They evoke the excitement
of being here a sort of ‘love for the oppressor’ (Philip Chevron, guitarist
with the Pogues) although Shane McGownan would deny this – he has moved from
accepting the label London-Irish to calling himself Irish. However this love of
London and rejection of sentimentality is demonstrated in Transmetropolitan which starts with a gentle traditional-music style
introduction and then breaks into a fast aggressive, tour of London. The Pogues’
imagination was focussed on London, not Ireland and their musical style
reconciled punk with traditional Irish music.
The Smiths launched in
Manchester at the same time as the Pogues in London. Their experience of being
second generation is encapsulated in the following quotes: ‘I’m one of us on
both sides’ Morrisey, ‘I’m Mancunian-Irish’ Johnny Marr. Marr spoke to Dr.
Campbell of the schizophrenic experience of having parents who were excited to
be in England (the land of opportunity) but who ran a home immersed in
Irishness where you sleep and swim in Irish life. Marr is repulsed by
‘...bullshit Irish romanticism’ – ‘The Smiths wanted to evoke the feeling but
not the sound of the Irish in 1960s Manchester.
This ambivalence of
melancholy and vibrancy is reflected in The Smiths songs e.g. Back to the Old
House – I want to be here but I long to be there and Please Please Please Let Me
Get What I Want – originally called The Irish Waltz with the word Erin printed
in the run-off groove. Morrisey’s lyrics – ‘When
you walk without ease/on these streets where you were raised’ also express this
ambivalence and lack of belonging.
Dr. Campbell showed that
ambivalence ‘not quite the definite article ... more the floating article’
(Marr?) can be a well-spring of creativity. As McDonagh says ‘... the ambiguities
are more interesting than choosing a strict path and following it’
During the lively Q&A
session that followed - the discussion ranged from the extremes of nationalism
to the policy of the Church in the 1960s/70s to educate second generation
Irish children as ‘English Catholics’ - it was clear that Dr. Campbell had
touched the sensibilities of his full-house audience many of whom were, like
myself, ‘dwellers on the threshold’ in terms of being second (or even third or fourth) generation Irish.
Dr Sean Campbell is
Reader in Media and culture at Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge and author of 'Irish Blood, English Heart': Second-Generation
Irish Musicians in England (Cork
University Press, 2011).
