A career-spanning exhibition on Irish punk legends The Pogues will make its United States premiere with an exclusive showing at the Bob Dylan Center beginning March 8. They Gave The Walls A Talking: The Extraordinary Story of The Pogues and Shane MacGowan will mark the center’s first special exhibit to focus on a musical artist other than Bob Dylan. Ticket information is available at bobdylancenter.com.
The exhibit was curated by Niall Stokes, leading Irish music writer and editor of the influential Hot Press magazine. It features contributions from family members, band members and more, including Victoria Mary Clarke, Siobhan MacGowan, Jem Finer, Nick Cave, Imelda May, Glen Hansard, producer Steve Lillywhite and the family of the late Frank Murray, the band’s original manager.
Exclusive to the Tulsa run, the exhibit will include rare material selected by MacGowan’s wife Victoria Mary Clarke. Taken from the The Eternal Buzz and the Crock of Gold, the selections include never-before-seen or published illustrations, drawings, lyrics, stories and snippets dating back to his childhood, and journeying through six decades of punk and Irish revelry.
They Gave The Walls A Talking opened in December 2023 at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in Dublin, Ireland, shortly after the death of Pogues co-founder, primary songwriter and frontman Shane MacGowan. Head of Exhibitions and Programs at EPIC Nathan Mannion commented, “We take immense pride in highlighting the stories and accomplishments of Irish emigrants, demonstrating that Irish identity transcends the geographical boundaries of our island. With that in mind, we commissioned this special exhibition to celebrate one of the greatest transnational Irish bands of all time.”
The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, who was among the mourners at MacGowan’s funeral, expressed his support for the launch of the exhibition at The Bob Dylan Center. “Shane MacGowan was one of the greatest ever Irish songwriters,” President Higgins said. “I was honored to present him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Dublin’s National Concert Hall in January 2018. The resonance of Shane’s words was reflected in the extraordinary outpouring of warmth which followed his death last November. One of the hallmarks of Shane’s writing was his intrinsic understanding of the vital importance of bringing a poetic sensibility to those wonderful, evocative songs of his. These are qualities that he shared with Bob Dylan, whose exceptional body of work rightly saw him being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.”
The VIP members-only opening event on March 7 will feature Clarke and Stokes in conversation with author and editor Anne Margaret Daniel.
On March 8, Clarke will appear at a special public screening of Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, the 2020 documentary directed by Julien Temple and produced by Johnny Depp. The film will be shown Tulsa’s Circle Cinema. Ticket information will be available soon.
The Pogues combined rowdy punk rock with traditional Irish music to create some of the most dynamic and memorable songs of the 1980s and ’90s. Their best-known song in the U.S. is the Christmas ballad “Fairytale of New York.” Other Pogues classics include “The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn,” “A Pair of Brown Eyes,” “Rainy Night in Soho,” “If I Should Fall from Grace with God,” “Misty Morning, Albert Bridge” and the Ewan MacColl cover “Dirty Old Town.”
How Many Roads: Bob Dylan and His Changing Times, 1961-64, which had been planned for a February opening at the center, will now open on May 24 following the run of the Pogues exhibit. Details about special events and appearances related to the exhibit will be announced in the coming weeks.
