Bottle-feeding lambs, poitin at TOTP & punching megastar – iconic Irish 80s acts reveal incredible secrets of golden era

The Irish Sun

17-07-2025

A TOUR manager for Irish rockers The Stunning gave one of megastars Blur 'a dig' — after mistaking him for a drunken music fan.
The Brewing Up A Storm band were making serious inroads in the
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The Stunning's Steve Wall revealed how the shock incident happened
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Blur supported The Stunning at a raucous London gig.
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The Hothouse Flowers feature on episode 4 of the Irish Sun's Fields of Dreams podcast
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Singer
'Derek, the guitarist at the time, had a tendency to play in his bare feet. One of these b*****ds broke a glass on purpose in front of Derek's guitar pedals so he couldn't get to it — and they were really p***ing us off.
'After the
'What he was trying to do? I don't know. Maybe he just thought like, 'I'll go in and say hello to the lads, I'm from Mayo', or wherever.
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'So we had this tour manager, a big strapping fella from Co
'He grabbed your man and he basically rammed him up against the door, threw him out — got the bouncers to kick him out."
So far so good, then.
He added: 'So we were towelling down. And then this other guy came in the door and it was Graham Coxon from Blur. I mean, we didn't know that at the time. And he was coming in because he thought he'd left something behind in the dressing room.
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'Tony grabbed him and rammed him up against the wall. And he said, 'I thought I told you to f*** off!' I think he gave him a dig.'
Steve added: 'I never got to meet him again after that, but I always wanted to apologise.'
Róisín O says Vogue Williams 'fan-girled' over her mam Mary Black
Episode 4 of the Fields of Dreams podcast examines the astonishing quality of the scene nationally in the 1980s and '90s which resulted in many Irish bands — including
Founder member Fiachna O'Braonain recalls a shock visit from Irish broadcasting royalty while over in London and about to head out and perform on legendary
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He said: 'We get a call from security. They say, 'There's a guy here, he says he's come to see you. He's from Connemara, and he's come all the way over to see you guys, and his name is Sean Ban Breathnach'.'
The
POITIN IN HAND
Fiachna added: 'F***ing SBB is here! So we go, 'Yes, let him in'. SBB arrives in… he had a bottle of poitin with him.'
The Fields of Dreams podcast also hears hilarious stories from Sharon Shannon, the accordion star who was propelled into fame with
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Just before her debut album became the biggest selling trad album in Irish history, she toured with the Whole Of The Moon hitmakers for 18 months.
Mike Scott decided they needed to tour on a massive bus, which they took to the Shannon farm in the west of Ireland one day.
BIG HOOLEY
She said: 'I don't know how it even fitted on the road. The road to our house where I grew up is a tiny little road with grass in the middle of it. I don't even know if my parents were expecting us.
'And this huge, big, luxurious bus comes in, drives into the driveway of the old farmhouse at
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'My mother was putting dinners in front of them. And if they were staying for any length, any long period of time, the bottle of whiskey would be out as well.
'So we had a mighty big hooley, a big session.
FEEDING THE LAMB
'And I remember Noel Bridgman, the drummer in the band, had a pet lamb, one of our pet lambs in his lap, and he was feeding the lamb with the bottle of milk.
'I can't get over that.
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'Real cool, you know, the leather trousers and the beautiful long hair and Steve with the feathers in his hat and all this — and all of them here in the middle of this old country farmhouse having a drink of whiskey and having a big session and feeding the lamb.'
This episode also focuses on the charity single craze which began with
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Hothouse Flowers star Fiachna O'Braonain got a shock visit from from Irish broadcasting royalty while over in London
Credit: Redferns
The 14-hour gig in
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However, the event was criticised before it even began.
Some saw it as doing the work of government, and the fury levelled at its main players left lasting marks on some.
These include Paul Doran, who co-wrote the song Make It Work — derided as 'Make it Worse' by some folk at the time — with Christy Moore. Make It Work topped the charts in May 1986.
For Doran, the instant fame, his struggles to deal with the attention and the criticism, and then failure to capitalise on what was a good song left a bitter aftertaste.
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'A BIT OF A SHOCK'
He revealed: 'I became very, very well known almost overnight, you know.
'And then to have people kind of criticizing this event that you're associated with and best known for, it was all a bit of a shock to the system really.
'I guess I didn't really know how to handle it.
'So yeah, my thoughts have changed over the years. There are times when I cursed it and thought, 'God, you know that's the only thing I'm known for'.
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'Tony grabbed him and rammed him up against the wall. And he said, 'I thought I told you to fk off!' I think he gave him a dig.'
Steve Wall
'It's a kind of a weight around my neck, you know — it's that kind of thing.
'I didn't capitalise on it at all.'
REGRETS
Paul continued: 'I regretted that at times, especially when I was on hard times in my life, and I was broke, and you know what I mean, I would say, oh, why didn't you do that?'
That followed 1985's Show Some Concern, by a 'supergroup' called The Concerned.
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Mike Hanrahan from Stockton's Wing was among those who joined forces for the single that topped the charts.
However, he admitted: 'If I'm been really honest about it, I think it's more of getting your face in the video, you know?
'PUBLICITY FEST'
'Those things… that was a publicity fest for artists.
'Maybe I'm a bit cynical — but what's wrong with that?' Singing superstar Mary Black also lifts the lid on the time Christy Moore kind of gatecrashed her wedding.
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The Field of Dreams podcast harks back to the time when she was starting to make waves as a solo singer in 1980.
It was when the
She said: 'I got married on March 6, 1980, and the wedding had to be stopped.
'Because it was being aired at half 9 that night, and we all squeezed into this room.
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'We were down in the Clarence Hotel in Dublin, having a knees-up wedding, and everything had to stop so they could see Mary on television singing on the Christy Moore show.'
EPISODE four of Fields of Dreams is out now on
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The Waterboys star Mike Scott insisted they needed to tour on a massive bus
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