Sally MacLennane

MacGowan wrote it, and it was released as a single on 10 June 1985, reaching number 54, the band's second single into the UK top 100. It is based on a bar his uncle owned that served Irish workers from the Ford plant in Dagenham. Along with A Pair of Brown Eyes it was one of the two songs Elvis Costello was first hired to produce.

The Guardian described a brisk march that resembles the soundtrack of a raucous night out, telling of a harmonica player named Jimmy who leaves town and returns years later. The Los Angeles Times noted that the song seems full of good cheer but does not end happily. Fearnley wrote in his memoir that the melodies were so seamlessly Irish he was surprised to learn it was not traditional. The Pogues recorded it for a John Peel session in December 1984, and Pitchfork singled out an energetic live reading of it among the rarities on the 2008 box set Just Look Them Straight in the Eye and Say....POGUE MAHONE!!