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

Larry Kirwan

• Wikipedia
• Black 47
• Celtic Crush with Larry Kirwan
• Celtic Crush Facebook
• Prior Irish Stew Episode

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 9; Total Episode Count: 112