The VP’s on the other hand, were genuinely transgressive, at least at the time.
True. In fact - and I'm no expert on the VP - but one of their songs features a lyric that directly refers to the early gay rights movement in Ireland.
Whatever happened to Emancipation Act '73?
I think it's lost, yes it's lost
Homosexuality was not decriminalised in the Republic of Ireland until 1993.
I think I'd allow for some dramatic licence on the part of Friday/Hanvey, when he talks of Ireland being a third world country in his youth, I think he means in terms of social changes, institutional Ireland was decades behind most of Europe and the US and so on.
But Ireland wasn't a third world country in the 60s/70s/80s, and even if parts of it were, Cedarwood Road (a nice suburban road, admittedly situated in close proximity to some dodgy and heroin-infested tower blocks) certainly wasn't. I'm younger than Gavin but I'm old enough to remember on family holidays to rural Achill in the early 1980s and my dad pointing out the odd house (occupied, not derelict) which had no electricity. If he'd grown up in one of those homes, Gavin might have a point.
I grew up relatively posh by the standards of the time, but I can remember during the 1980s recession my parents deciding to start home making wine as the family budget was quite stretched and they couldn't really afford to buy a bottle and didn't want to turn up at the various south side suburban dinner parties they were invited to without a gift. But that's not third wold, or even poverty. Relative poverty, at most.