Cáit O'Riordan: ‘I quit the Pogues at 21. I got sober ... didn't see Shane much'

Irish Times

30-05-2025

I was born in 1965. There were bombing campaigns and extreme anti-Irish racism where we were growing up in west London. It was the water we swam in at the time and I look back now and think, No wonder I grew up a bit angry.
When I was 14, it was the 10th anniversary of the civil rights marches in
Ireland
, and then the introduction of internment and troops on the street. I came home from school and my dad was swearing at the telly. I said, 'What's he yelling at?' It was footage of a British soldier kicking some guy's head in on the ground. I got an introduction to the story and it was up to me to go to the library and read up on it. Then I just turned into a rabid little Fenian. They were very intense times, a lot of negativity. Thatcher took over the Tory party and Reagan was getting power in the US. Punk started.
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My mother, who was Scottish Calvinist, was incredibly strict, so I would go off on my own: I used to climb out the window in the evenings. I'd get a bus and go in to town and see bands at The Rock Garden. It all got messy and I had to leave home and then I was in hostels: 16 into 17. I met
Shane [MacGowan
] when I was 17. He was working in a record shop and he was a mesmerising character – very funny, great to listen to. He and Spider [Stacy] were the best double-act. I was very highly educated, with an unnecessarily high IQ for anything I was particularly destined to be doing. It was really nice to be hanging out with these other autodidacts.
Shane MacGowan and Cáit O'Riordan of The Pogues. Photograph: Lisa Haun/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
I was only there [in
The Pogues
] for the first two albums. I quit at 21. It's amazing that it's the defining relationship of my life. Following the rules of being in a band was a big issue for me, though I didn't realise it at the time. I was a street kid who'd lived in hostels. I was more like a dysfunctional mascot in the band than a fully functioning member.
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Down the years, the relationship with Shane ... he was in Dublin, I didn't see him much, but I'd occasionally get a phone call to come over. It was lovely, but incredibly hard to watch him in a wheelchair. I was fascinated by his approach to alcohol. Shane would say, 'I've given up drinking.' Well, he'd literally be drinking alcohol! Shane had categories and hierarchies: whiskey and heroin was class A. A glass of wine was basically soda pop.
My world was very different. I got sober and focused on repairing relationships and being healthy and putting the work in to understand how cognitive issues manifest as behavioural issues. I got sober on February 15th, 2007. For me sobriety was like flicking a switch. Not many people go to rehab once and it sticks, but I've beaten the odds. I think it's because I had the privilege to go to school: I went to UCD and studied psychology. I needed discipline, a calendar, strict parameters and a timetable, everything that had been missing from my life.
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The major thing I took away from going to rehab was gratitude. What are you grateful for today? Well, you're alive. You have your legs, your arms, you're not deaf, are you glad about that? You can take that down to a micro-level and see that it's a beautiful day in Dublin.
I'm immensely proud of Irish bands and young Irish people in general. I just saw Fontaines DC in New York, and the Palestinian flag is on stage; kids in the audience are waving the Palestinian flag. I'm overwhelmed by respect for how young people have not gone backwards into apathy. Forty years ago Shane was writing
Birmingham Six
and we were playing miners' benefits. The circle goes around. Whoever thought that one day we'd look back and say 'Well, at least the Brits didn't send the RAF overhead and drop bombs on us and they didn't try to re-enact the Famine.' We never thought there was another level of depravity that was achievable.
I'm so grateful that I am an Irish citizen and Irish resident. Everywhere I go around the world, the amount of people that will say they want to come to Ireland or they have Irish blood – we used to take the piss out of them in The Pogues and now I get quite misty-eyed.
Musically I've a new challenge at the moment: I've been working with Kathy Valentine from the Go-Gos and Brix Smith from The Fall: they're California girls who've moved to London. They've put a band together and they got me and a New York drummer called Linda Pitmon in for the rhythm section. By the end of the summer we'll have a set. And with Paul Muldoon [O'Riordan plays bass in Muldoon's outfit Rogue Oliphant], we're going on the road in America at the end of August.
Cáit O'Riordan in Clontarf. Photograph: Alan Betson
Home is Clontarf by the sea. I wake up every morning and I feel happy. I'm in a good place. One cliche I'm happy to use is Keith Richards's [line] when he says, 'It's good to be here, but it's good to be anywhere.'
In conversation with Nadine O'Regan. This interview, part of
a series
, has been edited for clarity and length