that not even Morrissey is Irish enough to read that!

I recall when the tickets were not selling well in 99 there was a similar article about Mozza's Irishness. He himself started using the Irish term for milk in interviews approaching those gigs.

Funny how this sprogs up with loads of tickets still around. No such article in 2004 or 2002....and the business of 'pop' just churtles on!

the language called gaelic, or is there another language spoken in ireland?

I'd be happy to translate this for any of those left in the dark.

While waiting for O. Smeaton's or other's translations, if you access the article, which does what it says on the tin, and print it, there's a supplementary glossary at the end which makes it possible for nearly anyone to get a very good overview of what the article is saying, when read simultaneously.

‘The Irishness of other people is always a subject of great interest to the Irish’ the commentator Anthony Cronin once said. “It is not always of equivalent interest to the people themselves.” The singer Morrissey is of Irish origin and people all around the world, between Irish and others have spent over twenty years placing huge interest in his songs, his personality and even the smallest movements he makes. It is of interest that he has placed more emphasis on his Irishness in the past two years than he did for the rest of his career since he first came out in front of the world in 1983.

It was in that year that his band The Smiths released their first single Hand in Glove. Four from Manchester made up the band Mike Joyce, Andy Rourke, Johnny Marr and Steven Morrissey. All were descended from Irish parents except Rourke whose grandfather took TheWhite Boat upon himslef a generation previous.

A certain kind of Englishness was imagined in The Smiths work from the start, an identity which sprang from the working classness of Northern England. This view was preserved in the surroundings of Manchester a city still in depression after the decline in Industry.

If the blackness of the buildings left a mark on The Smiths, there was a lot more than gloominess in the band’s recordings. Having said that it is to this aspect that many people directed their attentions. That is exactly what the media did for example in the case of the song ‘Suffer Little Children’ which was written about the Moors Murders. The tabloid placed so much effort into this facet that more substantial matters were given a deaf ear (hearing aid pun??!!). On the edge of the controversy there was a remnant of Irishness in the surname of one of the killers, Ian Brady.

There were other knots (of Irishness) entwined in this portrait. The name of Shelagh Delaney, author of A Taste of Honey for example, a work which had a huge influence on Morrissey. He even borrowed a few phrases from the book in his own writing. In the midst of people chosen to decorate record covers also, were the actor Yootha Joyce and boxer Cornelius Carr. It is said that the song ‘A Rush and a Push and the land is ours’ is based on an Irish battle cry which is made reference to in a poem by Oscar Wilde’s mother, Sperenza. All of this undoubtedly is merely scrutiny on the Irish influence.

By the time The Queen Is Dead was released in 1986 however they were coming to the heart of the Irish question. In the title track the singer says ‘“So I broke into the palace / with a sponge and a rusty spanner / She said ‘Ah I know you and you cannot sing’ / I said ‘That’s nothing, you should hear me play piano’”. This is based on an incident in 1982 when the Queen woke up to find someone sitting on her bed. It is said there was a good ten minute conversation before security were notified. The visitor without an invitation was an Irishman named Michael Fagan.

UNEASE

It is said by Morrissey that on another track in the album “Never Had No-one Ever” was inspired by the unease he felt growing up at not being closely connected with the area he grew up in. Although there was comfort to be found in the fact that his grandparents had come from Crumlin to live near the other Morrissey’s that were living around Manchester, at the end of the day he wasn’t from the same country as his relations. Their accent was different to his, However he says he is proud that he does not speak with a fully Manchester accent, it was his mother’s side of the family, people who were in his own words ’Very Irish’ that took him in after his parents split up.

Morrissey’s Englishness and Irishness are at odds with each other however. They are firmly interwoven but at times they struggle with each other. He has spent a great deal of time and effort defending the country of his birth and also revealing the aspects of it which he does not like. What made him emigrate then?

Letting his opinions of Englishness go overboard, it was said. In the passing of years he was crit

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are once again clutching at straws in search of an Irish hero.

Morrissey was born in England of Irish parents, end of. Which makes him half Irish.

Half an Irish hero if you like!