'It was just mayhem': Rachael English captures the essence of the 1980s with new novel

IN 1985, Rachael English travelled up from Shannon to Dublin to see Bruce Springsteen perform in Slane - a night of firsts for more than one. While The Boss played for the first time in Ireland, Rachael attended her first ever big concert. She didn’t sleep for a few days, but it was “completely worth it”. 

With her friends Patricia and Sandra, a 16-year-old Rachael got on the bus to the capital. The girls had a lot to celebrate as they finished off their exams the previous day. 

"We left quite early in the morning and didn't get there until 5 o'clock when the concert started. There was so much traffic in the area, it was just mayhem. It was estimated that there could have been 90, 000 people there that day. It was so brilliant. We didn't get back until seven o'clock the following morning," she recalls. “I was working in Bunratty Castle Hotel washing dishes and I had to be at work at 10. So I literally went a couple of days with no sleep, but it was completely worth it. Completely worth it.” 

During Covid, the Clare author became obsessed with the music that was popular when she was in her early teens.

“This was one of the things that was the catalyst for the book. Those would be my memories, the bands who were popular in the early 1980s. That was the time that U2 emerged. I remember in Shannon at the time when I was growing up, like it really was a music mad town,” she says. 

In her seventh book, Whatever Happened to Birdy Troy, the author takes us on a rollercoaster journey through the rise and fall of an all-woman rock band from a small town in Ireland. As they were on the verge of international success, The Diamonds vanished. 40 years later, podcaster Stacey Nash becomes fascinated with the band that broke up before she was born. But as former band members are reluctant to cooperate, will she ever know Whatever Happened to them? 

With nostalgia and music, Rachael English masterfully immerses the reader into a compelling story. A portrayal of women whose career got cut short, in a music scene where darkness often lurks beneath the glamour. 

Speaking of her new book, Rachael explains: “What I wanted to do was to write about the women I grew up with and try and capture those times as well. I had this little idea at the same time of a podcaster who would sort of be like a detective without solving murders. The mystery being what happened to a particular group of people who were once famous, and try to find out what happened to them.” 

Rachael works as a presenter for Morning Ireland. Would she ever consider doing a series of podcast to investigate the past, in the same way her protagonist does?

 “It's funny, I was thinking about that because when the idea first came to me, I thought that would be really interesting,” she says. “Then I thought, in this day and age, it's hard to imagine any employer certainly being willing to allow you to do something that's a bit flaky like that might end up as a program or a podcast.”

In the book, Rachael captures the essence of the 1980s. As she wrote her novel, she remembered her own youth. 

“I would be a few years younger than The Diamonds in the book. I remember Shannon at the time. You had all these different groups. You used to have mobs, all the guys who were into AC/DC and nothing else. I read somewhere, and apparently there is science behind this, that the music that you like when you're 13 or 14, pretty much defines you for life as far as your taste in music is concerned.” 

The first cassette she ever bought features in the book. 

"The first album that I ever bought, even though it was a cassette, was Dare by The Human League, which came out in 1981. When I was putting together a playlist, I had to feature a song from that album in it,” she says. 

Rachael was always interested in writing. However, being an author does not always seem feasible. 

“I think for a lot of people, life sort of knocks that out of you because you have to earn a living. It's hard to earn a living from writing books,” she says. “I was lucky to get work as a journalist. I worked in Clare FM before I worked in RTE. I landed into something else that suited me and which I enjoyed and where I got opportunity, so I put the book thing on the back burner until recent years. Then I thought, ‘If I don't get this a try now, I'm probably never going to do it’. I didn't think I'd get as far as seven books.” 

While working on her new book, she read a few autobiographies by women who had been in bands. Who would she like to spend 24 hours in the shoes of? 

“I did become fascinated by Patti Smith and what an amazing life she has had and still has. She still performs a lot, and she's still very much involved in art. So I think being her would be fantastic.” 

Growing up in Shannon, Rachael and her friends often went to Limerick to go to discos or see bands. Now, with a series of big gigs to take place in Limerick this summer, some of her friends might have to travel from Dublin to the Treaty City - for a change. 

“We tended to go into Limerick a lot, it was it for us. So it's fantastic to see the way that these huge names are playing in Limerick now and people don't have to travel to Dublin or Cork to go and see bands,” she says. “A friend of mine couldn't get tickets for Liam in Dublin. I said, There you go now, there's your chance’. It's great to think that people from Dublin might be travelling to Limerick for a change to see a band,” she laughs.