Rocker-turned-Writer Larry Kirwan Debuts His Latest Novel, “Rockin’ the Bronx” and Spurs ’80s Recollections

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 28 May 2025 14:15

Written by Brad Balfour

During the annual Origin 1st Irish Festival, legendary Irish rocker Larry Kirwan presented a book launch, reading and performance of his latest novel, “Rockin’ the Bronx,” in April. Hosted by the New York Irish Center, this rare event added one more unique element to this festival of plays and readings of contemporary Irish works.

The bushy haired Kirwan is one unique guy in the course of Irish immigrants coming to New York. Born in Wexford, Ireland, Kirwan now lives in NYC and was leader of the aggro rock band Black 47 for 25 years. The political rockers played 2500 gigs, released 16 albums and appeared on every major US TV show.

The 70-something has also written three novels, this current one, “Rockin’ The Bronx,” “Liverpool Fantasy,” and “Rockaway Blue” as well as a memoir, “Green Suede Shoes” and “A History of Irish Music.”

In addition, he has written or collaborated on 21 plays and musicals. Among them, the Tony-nominated “Paradise Square” which he conceived and co-wrote put him further in the spotlight. The full-blown Broadway musical garnered 10 Tony Award noms including one for Kirwan and a win for its lead vocalist, Joaquina Kalukango.

Also a political activist, Kirwan has expressed his views as an Irish Echo columnist and celebrity host/producer of Celtic Crush on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. He was president of Irish American Writers & Artists for five years and received the 2022 Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Rockin’ The Bronx” can be ordered at all stores, at Amazon and all digital outlets. Autographed copies of the book can be purchased through SHOP at www.black47.com

Go to https://www.fordhampress.com/ where a discount of 25% off, plus free shipping (paperback and eBook) can be had. Use the code: ROCKIN25-FI

Q: What were the most challenging things in crafting this book, the characterizations or the plotting itself?

Larry Kirwan: “Out of character comes story!” So saith Aeschylus, the great Greek dramatist, and who am I to disagree. I always start with the characters whether it’s play or novel writing. Unless the characters are interesting, the story won’t grab a hold of you. Rockin’ The Bronx presented a problem though. I had played the bar scene in the Irish Bronx through the late ’70s and ’80s and recognized that something unique was happening up there.

Droves of young Irish immigrants swamped the area, drinking like fish, taking the subway at the crack of dawn down to Manhattan building sites, or nannying in yuppie apartments, six and even seven days a week. From the band stage it was like being in the midst of an immersive play, akin to being back in the Five Points during the huge Irish migration of 1847. I knew the scene had the makings of a great novel. I just didn’t know how to begin it.

Many years later, after Chris Byrne and I had made a success of Black 47, I took the two characters of our song Sleep Tight in New York City and used their story as the basis of Rockin’ The Bronx. That was a magical song to perform, and we always finished it with a long improvised instrumental coda, cinematic in scope. You could almost see Sean Kelly and Mary Devine materialize in the crowd and live out their story. The plot of the novel took some crafting and needed the introduction of another couple, Danny Boy McCorley from Belfast and the rambunctious Kate from Co. Mayo, but the lyrics of the song provided a great foundation.

Q: How much do you deviate from things you pull from memory and things that have evolved throughout your career?

Larry Kirwan: When you’re writing a novel you scavenge from all quarters. Is it fiction, is it fact? Who cares? You use what comes to hand. I never lived in The Bronx, I was an East Village guy, but I was part of the musical scene up there. I had also lived a fairly edgy life, so I had a store of experience to contrast with what was happening around me.

Ultimately, however, fiction takes over, especially in relation to plot which becomes more important as soon as characters are established.

Q: When you decide to write a book, does it take long to gather steam or does it kick off and keep going?

Larry Kirwan: Books are hard to write so when you begin one, you’ve really got to apply yourself as it will take years to finish. The trick is: deciding which idea or subject you will pursue –- which will be the most fruitful, which one are you best suited to handle? Writing a novel –- or a play –- is very time-consuming. You’ll lose faith, that’s only natural. Many times you’ll question your ability to write something original and worthwhile. But you just keep plugging on and hope for the best.

Q: When writing a book which incorporates the musician’s experience, how does that affect the parameters?

Larry Kirwan: It’s much the same as the parameters a carpenter might have, or an accountant. Perhaps, the boundaries might be more fluid for a musician, mostly because of the era you’re writing about. In the early 1980s –- when “Rockin’ The Bronx” took place — I was playing many different kinds of music.

The Punk/New Wave [I played] with Pierce Turner in Major Thinkers led to us touring with Cyndi Lauper, UB40 and many more. We were also playing improvisatory music behind the poet Copernicus, in CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, not to mention four sets a night of whatever songs and styles that would get us hired in The Bronx and other tri-state bars.

All of those experiences leaked into the writing of “RTB.” Because the Irish Bronx was such a wild and vibrant scene, we were trying to blow away audiences up there and not just play what the crowds wanted to hear. This, of course, led to tension and aggression.

Everything that happens to Sean and Danny on stage in the book actually happened to me in real life over the years. In our early Bronx days, Black 47 seemed to pose an almost existential threat to some of the “New Irish,” probably because we used Hip-Hop and Reggae beats and made our political leanings obvious with edgy lyrics. So, I had much to draw on.

Q: What is there about the Bronx that makes the experience of writing and then, reading this book different?

Larry Kirwan: The Bronx has always been the dead center of the New York immigrant experience. It’s traditionally been the poorest borough and arguably the toughest. But, for whatever reason, it’s always been very music oriented. Look at the South Bronx – it has spawned Rap/Hip-Hop, for many decades now the most universal and successful music style, you hear it in every country of the world. Then take the Irish Bronx. Bars up there had far more live music than any of the other four boroughs.

Gigs were plentiful for musicians. That’s why Chris Byrne and I took Black 47 to the Bronx immediately – you had a chance to play four one-hour sets a night, and get decently paid. After a year of that bruising, but important, experience, we were a band with our own unique sound, and, within another 18 months, we were a national touring act appearing on Leno, Letterman and O’Brien. That’s what The Bronx did for us, and that experience is reflected in “RTB,” even though the book is set 10 years previously.

Q: Which of the characters in the book came first and how did you plan the book’s evolution?

Larry Kirwan: Sean Kelly and Mary Devine came first. But more than anything, the book is about Sean’s undying love for Mary, and his need to understand why she left him and Ireland behind. Despite the socio-political trappings, Rockin’ The Bronx is a love story, and through Sean’s eyes we learn about Mary and the nature of her attraction to The Bronx. But, despite everything that happens, Sean never stops loving her.

We also learn about New York and what it was like in a period that encompasses the deaths of John Lennon and Bobby Sands. Very little has been written about the many young Northern immigrants who were familiar with the killing fields of Belfast and South Armagh – that’s why Danny McCorley is so important to the story. “RTB” is no fairytale, it deals with conflict, sexuality and many other issues, but it’s also a tribute to the young Irish immigrants of the ’80s who came to a very tough city and made lives for themselves over here.

Q: The challenges of imbuing the book with textures of the era — to make it distinct — are huge. Besides your own memories, were there other resources you used to enhance the book's authenticity?

Larry Kirwan: What other resources did I need? I lived it 24/7, like all the other Irish who arrived in that period when Ireland couldn’t provide for them. You don’t get that experience from books or academics, no matter how well meaning. The streets and the memories provide the material and the inspiration. The only thing you have to be careful about is making sure that you don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees – in other words, tell the damned story. I was always a reader and hung around the somewhat literary Bells of Hell and the Lower East Side. At that period I was reading a lot of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and, of course, the columns of Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, and other hands-on lecturers from the University of the Streets.

Q: How is the writing alike and different to writing your previous books?

Larry Kirwan: Each book is different but I’m struck by how youthful the authorial voice is in Rockin’ The Bronx. I was writing through the eyes of Sean Kelly, then in his early 20’s.There are also echoes of the Hip-Hop cadences of the South Bronx mixed in with the various vocal rhythms of the characters, Sean and Mary from County Wexford, Danny from Belfast, and Kate from rural Mayo, with just a smidgin of the run-on tempos of Kerouac to highlight the transitory nature of the rugged Irish Bronx we knew.

That style is very different from “Rockaway Blue,” my last novel, which tells the story of a family and city still reeling from 9/11, from the point of view of a Vietnam Vet/ NYPD detective in his late 50s. The writing in “Rockaway Blue” is more chiseled, then again such a controversial subject calls for a certain spareness. There’s more room for youthful excess and exuberance in RTB so I ran with that.

Q: Did it go easier or was this one tougher?

Larry Kirwan: They’re all tough, including the 21 plays/musicals I’ve written. You’re trying to capture a time, a place, and do justice to the people who lived there and the drama of their story. Mystery plays a large part in my stories – what’s Mary Devine’s secret that sends Sean to The Bronx in search of her; what was Lieut. Brian Murphy doing down in the World Trade [Center] right before the planes struck, and why can’t his father, Det. Jimmy Murphy let the past be? Or for that matter why did Paul McCartney change his name to Paul Montana and leave his three Beatle mates behind in my first novel, “Liverpool Fantasy?”

The importance of “Rockin’ The Bronx” to me is that a very special time and place is finally captured in print. There’s barely a trace of the old Irish Bronx left behind. This book shows us as we were in the final big surge of Irish emigration to New York.

Many were fleeing warfare in the North of Ireland, others were looking for the opportunities denied them in the Republic, and, some of us just came for adventure and the hell of it. The city was changing and we changed with it. One thing you can be sure of –- you’ll never see the like of us again.

Q: In writing this book did it inspire you to get up and play — to rock out? Now that you’ve gotten this out of your system will you do something very different or do you hope this will be the basis of a movie or another theatrical piece?

Larry Kirwan: I don’t write to inspire myself but I think “Rockin’ The Bronx” gives an insight into what it’s like to be a musician. Not just Sean and Danny on guitars, but also Shiggins on drums, Bugsy on bass, and especially Johnny Crowley on fiddle. I was close to Lester Bangs, the great rock critic.

He wrote many wonderful pieces about music and musicians, but at the same time I always felt that he was missing something, because he had never felt the inner fire and magic when contributing on stage to a great rock band. Hopefully, some of that essence is captured in “RTB.”

There’s already a theatrical version of “Rockin’ The Bronx.” It had three different productions here and in Ireland. It’s a straight play but I use a recorded score of Black 47 music to highlight scenes and characters.

And you’re right, I’m working on a very different project — “Rebel Girl” — a musical about the life and times of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the Irish-American labor activist and her union The International Workers of the World (Wobblies). It takes place between 1912-1922, a great melting pot period for Folk, Blues, Jazz, Swing, Gospel & Opera, but I treat those influences in a contemporary manner.

Oddly enough, the setting closely resembles current America with its immigration issues, income inequality, racial unease, and partisan divide. The seven characters include songwriter Joe Hill and birth control activist Margaret (Higgins) Sanger. The story centers on the intense love affair between Elizabeth and Italian revolutionary Carlo Tresca. Life goes on…

For more info, go to: www.black47.com

• Next >