Shane McGowan - Playwright

Lenin Skynard wrote: »

You'd be Nigerian, hard to understand what black has to do with anything.

wtf!.....you would STILL be Irish, there are Irish people born off the island, get over it ! Cliff Richard is not an Indian he's an Englishman born in India, all those British Army children born in Germany are not Germans they are British.

Your logic makes out that James Larkin, David O'Leary, Paul McGrath, are all English, they are not they are Irish.

Just as Francis Bacon and The Duke of Wellington are Englishmen who incidentally happened to be born in Ireland.

I just have him down as a piss artist /

Jonathan Aitken, Englishman who happened to be born in Ireland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Aitken

Shane MacGowan : Father > Irish
Mother > Irish
Upbringing and Self Identification > Irish
Passport ( which has your nationality on it ) > Irish

If Shane MacGowan has any Englishness or English blood about him then where is it?

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Yes there's quite a few people who achieved acclaim in the arts world who had drinking problems. Edgar Allan Poe and Scott F Fitzgerald are two others I can think of offhand.

The use of substances can often stimulate a creative mind.

Wasn't there some carry on a few years ago where Seamus Heaney had won some sort of (foreign :rolleyes:) literary prize, upon which he said that he had written the poem with a few whiskeys taken, (note Irish, well the english spelling of Irish Whiskey with the "e").

Whereupon the awarding committee quickly huddled together and announced that they were considering removing the accolade from him as the muse was only rising because he was pissed. Or am I dreaming that?

McGowan is talented for sure. But he used the "Irish" brand to its best effect...But this is turning into a nationality issue which means diddly squat.

A Muslim friend of mine tells me that whatever country they live in, that's the country they take to their heart, in other words, that becomes "their nation". McGowan chose his Irish connections to chose his nationality.

I have only one passport, but its not a passport of my nationality. The nationality angle is a time wasting pursuit.

McGowan has written some great stuff, and he helped make Irish traditional/fusion music/instrumentation acceptable at at time when it was unacceptable (and yes I'm talking about the north here) ..and for that he deserves some some sort of foreign peace prize..:D

Now where's my quill? Glug, glug, glug...

He's no playwright as he has never written a play, but he's a great songwriter - up there with the best of them imo. No one captures the emigrant experience in song as good as the Pogues.

Is he irish? he was born in the UK and moved back here shortly after with his irish parents until he was 6, then returned to London and came back most years on holidays etc. has lived in Dublin for the last number of years so he certainly has some claim.

Liam Clancy singing Shane's Broad majestic Shannon and dueting on Irish Rover

Feel sorry for him as the public want him to stay an alcoholic as he and they have bought into thst carousing Irish writer stereotype so deeply. Nobody wants to go to his gigs and see him sober.