Flying home for Christmas singing Fairytale of New York

All eyes were fixed on the bend the train would take from Dalkey. Mine flicked from the tangled weeds and bushes lining the tracks, to the ivy-clad walls of the station, to the passengers on the opposite side south-bound for Bray, to Killiney Hill towering towards a steel grey sky. At last, the DART wriggled around the curve and uncoiled like a long, green caterpillar. I pressed the button for the door to open. On June 22nd 1987, I was on my way to America.

That same month, Shane McGowan gathered his band in a London studio to finish a Christmas song he’d been working on for two years. After his first tour of the US in 1986, he became obsessed with its mythology, its music and its movies, playing Sergio Leone’s film, Once Upon a Time in America, the whole time on the tour bus. It was then he decided that his song would have to be set there.

He’d nailed the lyrics while hallucinating during a bout of pneumonia and had a title, taken from the J.P. Dunleavy novel about a young man who arrives in America from Ireland. His father was a fan of the writer and Shane chose Fairytale of New York as a favour to him.

I, meanwhile, was waitressing in Burger Heaven on 56th and Lexington, living with three girls in Yonkers, and drinking in bars with names like Hennessey’s, the Punch Bowl, Celtic House and Characters. My first Sunday in Gaelic Park, I stood at the turnstile, gaping at the sea of heads stretched from the entrance to the bar door. The smell of fried food clung to the air, already laden with heat, and a band belted out Take me Home to Mayo. Fifty thousand of us had arrived that year, yet I was still surprised to see so many in the same space.

The son of an immigrant himself, McGowan had always been struck by stories of ancestors forced to make a new life thousands of miles from home. “If you were Irish, you were either dead or in America,” he has said. He was also taken with the notion of dreams being dashed. Exiles forced to look back at an imagined Ireland, fueled by Galway Bay and the Foggy Dew, songs he was weaned on. Clancy Brothers and Dubliners records had filled his childhood home, the inspiration for the Irish folk/rock genre that would place the Pogues firmly on the musical map.

When Kirsty McCall came on board for the duet that August, everything clicked into place. And once the video was complete, the song was ready for the Christmas market. On December 17th, they appeared on Top of the Pops, reeling in at Number Two. Ma would’ve had the tree lit, the paper decorations suspending from the ceiling, the iced fruit cake with its red ribbon sitting on the sideboard. I would’ve been traipsing around Cross County Mall, scouting for GAP outfits and Guess bags.

The Aer Lingus gate was bulging with Macy's shopping and Santa hats and sheepish men in reindeer sweaters. The party started on the plane with free drink and smoking allowed at the back. The stop-off in Shannon had them making for the bar, and their first real pint of Guinness in God knows how long, and me dying for a cup of Lyons' tea. Into the loo then to touch up the make-up and on the half-hour flight to Dublin, the excitement was palpable. Green fields beneath us, greener than we had ever remembered, and the hostess announcing "céad míle fáilte" to rapturous applause.

Ma and Da were waiting in Arrivals, and on the drive home, I wallowed in the quiet, the calm, as the sun rose over Sandymount Strand. Ma spoke about a lovely new song and how she thought of me every time she heard it.

Little did we know that for the next 20 Christmases she would be listening to the Pogues while preparing for my annual visit. “When they start playing Fairytale of New York on the radio, I look forward to you coming home,” she used to say.

In 2006, I came back for good and when people asked me why, I couldn’t tell them at the time. Three years later, Ma passed away. And then, I knew.

Now, a song that once reminded her of me, reminds me of her.

Frances Browner lives in Co Wicklow. Immigration is a recurring theme in her collection of short stories, memories and poems, You Could’ve Been Someone, which is published by Original Writing and available from originalwriting.ie and selected book shops.