There’s a surreal scene halfway through the latest episode of Aistear an Amhráin (RTÉ One, Tuesday at 7pm), where the 1983 funeral of Belfast music roadie Thomas “Kidso” Reilly is attended by big-haired pop threesome Bananarama. Two universes collided: Northern Ireland in the darkest days of the Troubles and the carefree world of London pop.
“This bubbly fun trio – why were they carrying wreathes?” wonders a friend of Kidso, who had gone to London to escape the grim reality of the Troubles and became acquainted with pop stars such as Bananarama and Spandau Ballet, then in their first flush of success as leaders of the New Romantic scene.
Aistear an Amhráin is a documentary series unpacking the history of some of Ireland and the world’s best-loved songs. It is the sort of show RTÉ should make more of. Clocking in at just 30 minutes, it doesn’t wear out its welcome, and its selection of music is wide-ranging, with this season encompassing the old republican dirge Grace and the unofficial Cork sport’s anthem, After All by the Frank and Walters.
Episode three delves into Through the Barricades, the Spandau Ballet lament for barriers and prejudice that songwriter Gary Kemp reveals was informed by the shooting dead of Reilly by a British soldier.
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“I visited Kidso’s grave,” remembers Kemp. He describes his dismay at the peace lines that divided Belfast by religion. “I was shocked by the barricades stopping you crossing from one area into the next. I’d never seen anything like that. The resonance of seeing that, his [Reilly’s] little photograph [on the headstone]. Very powerful [and] poignant. [It] stayed with me as an experience stronger than anything.”
The episode has the challenging task of celebrating the chunky-quiffed pop of Spandau Ballet while also acknowledging the tragedy of Reilly’s death – an innocent man whose killer would become the first British soldier tried and convicted of murder.
“My father had to sit through the whole trial and listen to the details, and listen to that British soldier blacken his son’s name,” recalls Reilly’s brother, Jim (who played drums for Belfast punk group Stiff Little Fingers). “Make his son – who he had murdered in cold blood – out to be the perpetrator and him the victim.”
The Irish influence on Through the Barricades goes beyond Belfast. In the mid-1980s, Spandau Ballet briefly became tax exiles in Dublin . In his digs in Stillorgan, Kemp was seized by a moment of inspiration and bashed out the tune over a few hours.
He recalls tipping a hat to WB Yeats with the line, “It’s a terrible beauty we’ve made”. “Yeats, right,” he enthuses. Then, with heaviness in his voice, he adds: “A terrible beauty encapsulated Ireland perfectly”.
