Nine years ago (well, and before), nobody expected the original Irish punk rockers, the Pogues, to resurface together. Fans had followed the band's slow dissolution across the late 1980s and early 1990s, parallel with the personal struggles of its mad genius frontman and songwriter, Shane MacGowan.
Born in England to Irish parents, MacGowan's immigrant status left him with a permanent outsider's view that eventually led him into the later throes of original British punk. After his first
