5 April 1990
In the absence of Bela from Fair City and Tadhg from Ros na Rún duetting on ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’, we have this. Soap stars becoming pop stars were a common feature in the singles charts by now, so it was a promotional no-brainer that the Irish soaps would follow suit. Surprisingly, this is the only one, at least to my knowledge.
For any of my fellow young people reading this, Glenroe was the Sunday evening Irish soap of the ’80s and ’90s. Everyone’s parents and grandparents watched it. I confirm that all those Irish stand-up comic routines about the jaunty tin-whistle theme from Glenroe causing Sunday night dread and frantic last-minute homework-doing are based on lived experience; for a whole generation of us it really was The Music From The End Of The World.
‘The Byroad To Glenroe’ isn’t that theme (which is on the B-side here) so relax; this was actually from a storyline where for some reason Mick Lally’s character, gormless farmer Miley, pitched up in a recording studio to lay down a track. I think it may have been a romantic gesture for his wife Biddy, long before he jumped the shark and threw the leg over Fidelma in the hayshed.
If you like old Irish romantic ballads such as ‘Red Is The Rose’ it might appeal to you: the plaintive, melodic tale of a sheep-herder encountering a red-haired cailín álainn along the titular rural infrastructure. Lally doesn’t strike any singer poses here. As befits an accomplished stage actor he delivers the lines, keeps it between the ditches of said byroad, then goes back to the day job. I don’t recall any follow-up or other Glenroe chart aspirants, which was probably for the best all round.
Here’s where the 1990 Irish singles charts temporarily give up measuring pop music and instead focus full-time on measuring pop culture. ‘The Byroad To Glenroe’, which kept Madonna’s stunningly brilliant ‘Vogue’ off our number one spot, is a modestly diverting time capsule from a much-loved TV soap. With our next chart-topper or three, however, we strike the Irish pop-cultural motherlode of 1990 – maybe even the biggest pop-cultural meteorite ever to hit Ireland.
