It was a year when all manner of ecological malaise seemed to come home to roost. In particular the Sudan was in turmoil, putting our own nasty little problems of smog, toxic waste and criminal fish kills into sharp relief – but the tribute these developments pay to the extraordinary inability of our bureaucrats to plan intelligently and effectively chastening nonetheless.

If the government and the Dept. of Health in particular don’t get the finger out, then we’ll end up with the worst AIDS problem in Europe for our trouble. Or maybe we’ll force Irish victims of the disease that knows no boundaries to emigrate, like the other third of a million citizens of this green and often decidedly unpleasant land, who’ve been politely told to fuck off by our wonderful economic gurus these past few years.

Against that backdrop, the proliferation of substantial Irish records released during the course of the past year must be seen as a Very Good Thing. there are aesthetic, political, artistic and philosophical issues which of necessity must qualify that statement but you don’t have to be less than critically rigorous to acknowledge the manifest strengths of U2’s ‘Rattle And Hum’ – a magnificently potent work despite its odd weak moments, it features my favourite rack of the year bar none in transcendent ‘Angel Of Harlem’ – Something Happens! ‘Been There, Seen That, Done That’, The Pogues ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’, Dolores Keane’s eponymous solo debut, A House’s ‘On Our Big Fat Merry-Go-Round’ and the two surprises of the year, Van Morrison And The Chieftains wonderfully majestic ‘Irish Heartbeat’ and Enya’s brilliantly atmospheric ‘Watermark’.

This was Hothouse Flowers’ year too and, reservations about ‘People’ aside, I’ll stand by their post Eurovision British hit ‘Don’t Go’ (originally released here in ’87) as a rich and powerful single offering any day, given that it withstood the ultimate test: I liked it before I knew who’d recorded it. In Tua Nua also continued to improve, ‘The Long Acre’ offering sufficient reason to believe that if Virgin keep their faith in the band, then they will deliver. The unfashionable Cactus World News meanwhile spent the year in limbo but the word now is that a new album is raring to go. The stakes are high but I can still see Cactus breaking the States – given the breaks! The new year will also see the local release of Tuesday Blue’s debut which has been on sale in the U.S. for some time. Quite what the strategy is here I can’t work out – it seems to me that the opportunity to create a valuable local core-following is gradually being eroded – but that doesn’t make the prospect of the vinyl any less tantalising.

1988 also saw Sinead O’Connor battle her way into world prominence with 1987’s ‘The Lion And The Cobra’. In particular the single ‘Mandinka’ scored heavily, charting first in Britain and Ireland early in the year, and carrying on to establish her as one of the most fascinating and audacious new talents on the international stage. Equipped with a magnificent voice, she may yet go on to crate the standards that everyone else has to emulate in the 90’s but for her next offering I suspect it’ll be crucial for her not to lose the underlying sensitivity and soul that’s been central to the magnetism of her music to date.

After its enormous gestation period, The Waterboys’ ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ divided opinion radically but Mike Scott and company had nothing to apologise for whatsoever in this stirring, idiosyncratic and often poetic celebration of the power of the deep…

Those kind of riches made it possible to live, eat, sleep and breathe Irish music – in between everything else you were trying to do with your life. That wouldn’t have been remotely possible five years ago and when you add in the potential for greatness of That Petrol Emotion, Gavin Friday, Paul Cleary (still!) Scale The Heights, Cathal Coughlan, The Stunning and Blue In Heaven then I’m fucked if I’m going to accept that things are poorly on the ‘local’ front.

There is a lack of great Irish dance music, and the desire to impress A&R men first and make enduring music only as an afterthought may be disturbingly prevalent but if Missing Link, The Word, The Fat Lady Sings, The Four Of Us and The Candyshop stick to their guns, then Irish pop will no longer represent the contradiction in terms it’s often seemed. And beyond naming names, rest assured that there are a lot of hidden, substantial talents who have yet to make their mark – but they will.

Me? I’m still optimistic. The mechanisms are in place. The talent is there. And the money exists, at least, to invest in Irish recording. I reckon we’ll have a few other names on the leader board by this time next year.