The Boomtown Rats
Again, not so much Pop as Rock, but our strapline is “Pop essentials and a little bit more” so we’re including them.
Think Boomtown Rats, and you automatically think “I Don’t Like Mondays” and Band Aid/Live Aid. Lead singer Bob Geldof is better known these days for his ratty hair than his music, but “Sir Bob” was a mover and a shaker in the 80s and led the charge (with Ultravox’s Midge Ure) to feed the starving during Ethiopia’s famine.
Sinead O'Connor
Sinead O’Connor has a beautiful singing voice most famously heard in her best-known song, “Nothing Compares 2 U”. From her second studio album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” the video features a close up of O’Connor’s face spliced with footage of her walking through Paris, where it was filmed. Sinead’s tears towards the end are the most remembered part though, and the singer says they were unplanned, but were brought on by the lyrics, “All the flowers that you planted, Mother/in the back yard/All died when you went away”, due to her complex relationship with her mother.
The Pogues
Another stretch, but we have to include The Pogues. Okay, they’re dyed-in-the-wool punk to the very dodgy back teeth of lead singer Shane MacGowan, and they aren’t even officially Irish as they were formed in London, but their members mostly are, so they’re here.
Famed for their use of the tin whistle and other traditional Irish instruments, including the cittern, mandolin and accordion, the Pogues’ most famous song is “Dirty Old Town”, which is another you’re guaranteed to hear played on St Patrick's Day.
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