25 July 1981
When the bould Martin Brennan followed his rendition of ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ with ‘Come Out You Black And Tans’ and ‘The Men Behind The Wire’, he was replicating the Irish singles charts of July 1981. The Fureys and Davey Arthur were succeeded as Irish number one by the Wolfe Tones, four Dublin balladeers whose Republicanism extended to being big fans of the modern-day Provisional IRA, back when the ‘Ra were not generally ooh-aah-upped about. Where smouldering sex symbol Finbar Furey sang of courtly love across the village green, the Wolfe Tones once had an Irish number one single about a 1973 IRA prison break-out involving a helicopter.
Considering that 1981 was the year of the H-Block hunger strike deaths, this Wolfe Tones number one is Troubles-free; it’s a tale of Irish emigration to America. True, a policeman is shot dead, but it’s the NYPD-cop uncle of the narrator during “an uptown foray”. By the end, our young ex-pat has followed his late uncle into New York’s police force.
‘Streets Of New York’ was written by Liam Reilly, lead singer of Irish piano-driven soft-rock outfit Bagatelle, whose big hit ‘Summer In Dublin’ is similarly a corny attempt at melding ’70s AOR storytelling-songwriting with traditional Irish balladry. The 1980s second-generation Irish in New York and Boston probably loved it, but then they probably loved the one about the helicopter too.
