Join us as Larry Kirwan spins us back to the vibrant, violent New York City of the 1980s and the lives of the mostly undocumented Irish who called a patch of turf there home, in his novel Rockin’ The Bronx.
Best known as the frontman for the legendary Irish-inflected rock & roll band Black 47, Larry delves into themes of immigration, Irish and Hispanic cultural intersections, the shifting fortunes of the navvies and the nannies, the unnamed scourge of AIDS, Reagan-era politics, and his creative process in writing plays, novels, and music.
“I could tell you how to write a novel, and how to write a play, basically in five minutes each,” he says. “With songwriting, I still don't understand it. It's that moment when the hammer hits the anvil, and sparks fly.”
Now the Wexford native is combining his songwriter and playwright skills in a new musical on labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
And stick around for Martin’s reading of a Rockin’ The Bronx passage reminiscent of the closing section of James Joyce’s “The Dead.”
Links
Book Orders:
• Fordham University Press: Rockin’ The Bronx (https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531510008/rockin-the-bronx)
Larry Kirwan
• Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kirwan)
• Black 47 (https://www.black47.com)
• Celtic Crush with Larry Kirwan (https://www.siriusxm.com/channels/the-loft)
• Celtic Crush Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/p/Celtic-Crush-100063454984357)
• Prior Irish Stew Episode (https://www.irishstewpodcast.com/LarryKirwan)
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 9; Total Episode Count: 112
