Fairytale of New York was written by Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer of the Pogues and sung with Kirsty MacColl. It came out in late November 1987. It reached No. 2 in the UK, kept off the top by the Pet Shop Boys, and went to No. 1 in Ireland. It follows two Irish emigrants in New York on a hard Christmas Eve, still holding on to hope.
When Shane MacGowan died on 30 November 2023, I posted the news here with a short line of my own. Very sad. RIP.
This is the full Fairytale of New York story. How a song about two broke emigrants in a New York drunk tank became the Christmas song for Irish people everywhere. And the Kent-born lad who co-wrote it, whose heart never left north Tipperary.
Jump to:
- Who wrote Fairytale of New York?
- The long road to the recording
- Release, the Christmas No. 2 and the video
- What the song is about
- The radio edit row
- Back every Christmas
- Shane MacGowan’s life
- His death and the funeral in Nenagh
- Why it matters to the Irish abroad
- FAQ
Who wrote Fairytale of New York?
Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer wrote it. Both were founding members of the Pogues, as RTÉ Archives and the Irish Times record.
Finer, the band’s banjo player, had the first idea for the story.
The long road to the recording
How it started depends on who you ask. In Dorian Lynskey’s history of the song, first published in the Guardian and carried by the Irish Times, the band members disagree.
The Elvis Costello bet (Shane’s version)
MacGowan’s account is that Elvis Costello bet him he couldn’t write a Christmas duet to sing with bassist Cait O’Riordan.
Accordionist James Fearnley remembers it differently. In his memory, manager Frank Murray suggested they cover The Band’s 1977 song “Christmas Must Be Tonight”. Take your pick.
From a sailor to a couple in New York
Finer’s first idea was a sailor at sea, missing his wife at Christmas. His wife, the artist Marcia Farquhar, thought it was corny. She suggested a couple on hard times who find some redemption.
The title came from a book. Finer was reading J.P. Donleavy’s 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York, according to the Irish Times. Donleavy had earlier written a stage play, Fairy Tales of New York.
Cait O’Riordan, the first voice
Costello recorded an early demo around the start of 1986, alongside “A Rainy Night in Soho”. O’Riordan sang the woman’s part on those early versions. She left the band in October 1986.
Kirsty MacColl steps in
Steve Lillywhite produced the sessions at RAK Studios in London in summer 1987.
For the woman’s part, he turned to Kirsty MacColl, his wife at the time. The Irish Times says she recorded her vocal at his home studio. Lillywhite recalled spending a whole day on her vocals.
She sounds tough, funny and hurt, sometimes in the same line. Plenty have tried the part since. Saoirse Ronan’s duet with Jimmy Fallon gets its own page here: Saoirse Ronan and the Fallon duet.
Release, the Christmas No. 2 and the video
The single came out in late November 1987.
The Official Charts Company says it entered the UK chart on 5 December 1987 and peaked at No. 2. The Pet Shop Boys’ “Always On My Mind” held it off Christmas No. 1.
Ireland had better taste. It was No. 1 here at Christmas 1987. It then appeared on the 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.
The video was shot in New York during Thanksgiving week. Matt Dillon plays the policeman, and the NYPD pipe band appears too. According to the Irish Times, the pipers didn’t know “Galway Bay”. They reportedly mouthed the Mickey Mouse Club theme instead.
Here is the official video, “Fairytale Of New York”, from the Pogues’ own YouTube channel.
What the song is about
The song is a conversation between a man and a woman. Both are Irish emigrants who came to New York with big hopes. It opens on Christmas Eve, with him in a drunk tank.
It swings between the dream they arrived with and the mess they’ve made. They fight, and the insults fly. Then, at the end, a small, stubborn bit of love is left.
Finer told the Irish Times it drew on “a true story of some mutual friends living in New York”. MacGowan told Dorian Lynskey that both characters were versions of himself.
It isn’t a sweet Christmas song. It’s a sad one with a soft heart, which is closer to how Christmas feels for many.
The radio edit row
One word in Kirsty’s verse, a slur, has caused rows for years. I won’t print it. The facts are these.
- 2007: BBC Radio 1 edited two words. Controller Andy Parfitt reversed the decision within days. Kirsty’s mother, Jean MacColl, called the ban “too ridiculous”.
- 2018: 2FM presenter Eoghan McDermott raised the issue in Ireland. MacGowan said in a statement to Virgin Media TV that the word suited “a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history”. He said he was fine with it being bleeped. RTÉ said it would keep playing the original.
- 2020: BBC Radio 1 played a version using an alternative line Kirsty had recorded. Radio 2 kept the original that year.
Remembering Kirsty MacColl
Kirsty never saw the song become what it is now. She died in December 2000 in a boating accident off Mexico, aged 41. She was struck by a speedboat while swimming. She left two sons.
Every Christmas, her voice comes back on the radio. That seems right.
Back every Christmas
This one comes back every year, like the relatives. The figures are from the Official Charts Company.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Christmas 1987 | UK No. 2. No. 1 in Ireland. |
| 1991 | A UK reissue peaks at No. 36. |
| 2005 onwards | Back in the UK Top 40 every year. |
| December 2023 | Up 14 places to UK No. 4. Irish No. 1 again, 36 years after its first. |
| December 2024 | 316 million UK streams, third among Christmas songs behind Mariah Carey and Wham! |
| Christmas 2025 | No. 6 on the UK Christmas chart. |
In all, it has spent 140 weeks in the UK Top 100. It has hit every Top 20 position except No. 1.
A YouGov poll published in December 2020 named it the UK’s favourite Christmas song, backed by 17% of those with a favourite.
A limited vinyl came out in December 2023, with proceeds to the Dublin Simon Community.
Shane MacGowan: born in Kent, rooted in Tipperary
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was born at Pembury Hospital, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, on 25 December 1957. His father, Maurice, was a Dubliner.
He spent long stretches of his childhood with his mother’s family in Carney, near Borrisokane in north Tipperary. The Irish Times obituary names the family home as a cottage called The Commons.
School, punk and the Pogues
He won a place at Westminster School and was expelled. Punk suited him better.
In 1982, in King’s Cross, he co-founded Pogue Mahone with Jem Finer and Spider Stacy. The name comes from the Irish “póg mo thóin”. That means “kiss my arse”.
Stiff Records boss Dave Robinson signed them, and they were rebranded as the Pogues.
They played Irish traditional music loud and fast. To my mind, they made a lot of young London Irish proud of where they came from.
The later years
The band let him go during a tour of Japan in 1991. He fronted the Popes in the 1990s, rejoined the Pogues in 2001 and played with them until 2014.
A fall in 2015 left him unable to walk. In January 2018 he had a 60th birthday concert at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. President Michael D. Higgins gave him a lifetime achievement award there.
Later in 2018 he received an Ivor Novello inspiration award. That November he married his long-time partner, the writer Victoria Mary Clarke, at Copenhagen town hall.
In December 2022 he was taken to hospital with viral encephalitis. RTÉ reported he left St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin on 22 November, eight days before he died.
His death and the funeral in Nenagh
Shane MacGowan died on 30 November 2023, aged 65. A statement from the Pogues, quoted by RTÉ, said he “died peacefully at 3am”, with Victoria and family by his side.
Victoria wrote of “the longing for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world”, RTÉ reported. President Higgins called him “one of music’s greatest lyricists”.
On Friday 8 December 2023, the Artane Band led a horse-drawn carriage carrying his coffin through Dublin. Then he went home to Tipperary for the last time.
The Funeral Mass was held at St Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh. President Higgins attended. Johnny Depp read a prayer of the faithful and Gerry Adams gave a reading.
A recorded reading from Bono was played, and his sister Siobhán spoke.
Nick Cave sang “A Rainy Night in Soho”. Mundy and Camille O’Sullivan sang “Haunted”. Then Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill led “Fairytale of New York”, and people danced in the aisles.
Glen Hansard died in July 2026, aged 56, which makes that moment harder to think about now.
Near the end, former Pogues Jem Finer, Terry Woods, Spider Stacy and James Fearnley led “The Parting Glass”. In his homily, Father Pat Gilbert said MacGowan had made Irish music cool around the world, RTÉ reported. A private cremation followed.
Why it matters to the Irish abroad
For anyone Irish living away from home, this song hits harder. It’s about people who left for a better life and found it hard going.
It’s about Christmas in a strange city, a long way from your mother’s kitchen. And it’s about still believing, against the evidence, that things might come right.
The Irish Times obituary says MacGowan “instilled pride among the Irish in Britain at a time when so many felt cowed”.
No wonder it turns up at Irish Christmas parties from Boston to Sydney.
Fairytale of New York FAQ
Who wrote Fairytale of New York?
Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer of the Pogues. The title was borrowed from a J.P. Donleavy novel.
Who sings the female part, and who sang it first?
Kirsty MacColl sings it on the 1987 record. Bassist Cait O’Riordan sang it on early versions, before she left the band in 1986.
Was Fairytale of New York ever Christmas No. 1?
Not in the UK, where it peaked at No. 2. It was Irish No. 1 at Christmas 1987, and again in December 2023.
What is Fairytale of New York about?
Two Irish emigrants in New York who argue bitterly on Christmas Eve, but still hold on to some love.
Why is Fairytale of New York edited on the radio?
One word in Kirsty’s verse is a slur. BBC Radio 1 edited it in 2007, then reversed the decision. It played an edited version again from 2020. RTÉ said in 2018 it would keep playing the original.
More Irish Christmas reading
- Christmas in Ireland
- Irish Christmas traditions, food and dinner
- Wren Day: the Irish St Stephen’s Day tradition
- 10 Irish Christmas blessings
- Irish New Year’s traditions
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