It is a much remarked phenomenon that two of the most important British bands since the Beatles – The Smiths and Oasis – were almost entirely Manchester-Irish.
Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr, whose parents were from Athy, Co Kildare, told The Irish Times some years ago: “I’ve never described myself as British or English. I’m either Mancunian or Mancunian Irish – that is a culture and a nationality that is a thing unto itself.”
Oasis, too, come from a working-class Irish background. Along with the Gallagher brothers, original members Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Tony McCarroll all have Irish roots.
The Gallaghers’ father Tommy was from Duleek, Co Meath; their mother Peggy Sweeney from Charlestown, Co Mayo, a place synonymous with mass Irish emigration.
Peggy was one of 11 children and emigrated to Manchester at the age of 18 in 1961 sending back £1 a week to help her family. Many of the Sweeney family moved to Manchester – five of Peggy’s sisters lived nearby.
Tommy Gallagher worked as a builder in Manchester and moonlighted as a country and western DJ at the Carousel Club. Big Tom MacBride of Big Tom and the Mainliners fame remembers attending the club and seeing Noel and Liam there. “They were only skitters of gossons at the time.”
When the Gallagher brothers were young, their summers were spent in either Charlestown or Duleek. Noel Gallagher told Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show in 1996 that his mother used “to drag us religiously by the earhole for six weeks because we had never seen the likes of nettles. We run around the fields throwing things at cows. She was determined to introduce us to Irish culture.”
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It was a bit of a culture shock but “we grew to love it and we still love it,” he added.
For their parents, the summers provided an antidote to the concrete jungle they grew up in.
Tommy Gallagher bought Noel his first guitar and brought him to Maine Road to see Manchester City, but Noel has no time for him.
Peggy later left Tommy and recalled years after: “I left him a knife, a fork, and a spoon. And I think I left him too much.”
She and her children left the family home in Burnage for a council flat. She took several jobs to provide for her three boys, Noel, Liam and Paul and kept the family together saying in later years: “We’re Irish Catholics and we’re that kind of family.”
Tommy became completely estranged from his family. In one notorious incident at the height of the band’s fame in March 1996, he turned up at Dublin’s Westbury Hotel where his sons were staying.
He arrived in the bar at 2am and ended up in a screaming match with Liam. Tommy had to be escorted off the premises.
Noel said of his father: “As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t got a father. He’s not a father to me, y’know? I don’t respect him in any way whatsoever.”
Tommy would continue to pontificate on his estranged sons saying that reports of him being a bad father were exaggerated. He even held out hope of a public reconciliation with his sons, but it never came.
The question of Oasis’ links with Co Meath came up, inevitably, at a press conference to announce their gig at Slane Castle in 2009. Noel Gallagher recalled that approximately 80 relatives turned up to the band’s earlier Slane gig in 1995 when they played support to REM.
Both Tommy and Peggy Gallagher are still alive.
Peggy’s family home, which she later used for holidays, was sold last year for €300,000. Locals said Mrs Gallagher was no longer able to come over to the house on her own and there was no one locally to look after her any more.
As a Manchester City fan, Noel was asked last year about the club’s midfielder Phil Foden.
“Do you care how he plays for England in the Euros this summer?” asked the interviewer.
“I’m not an England fan, I’m Irish,” Gallagher replied. “Good night!”