The book draws on extensive archival research of print and audio-visual media as well as original interviews with the key figures, including Shane MacGowan, Johnny Marr, Kevin Rowland and C? ORiordan. Combining its assiduous research with fresh critical insights, the book offers new analyses of the musicians, as well as previously undocumented accounts of their lives and work. The book highlights the diversity and complexity of second-generation Irish identities and experience and details the diverse ways in which this generation has shaped popular music in England. Accessible and original, Irish Blood, English Heart will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of popular music, media/cultural studies, and ethnic/migration studies. It will also appeal to a wider audience of those interested in the musicians with whom it deals.
Sean Campbell is Senior Lecturer and Research Convenor in the Department of English and Media at Anglia Ruskin University, and is the co-author of Beautiful Day: 40 Years of Irish Rock (2005).