This is one of my favourite Christmas songs. It is probably the one song you are guaranteed to hear on every Irish radio station and in every Irish pub at this time of year!

"Fairytale of New York" was released as a single in 1987 and reached #1 in the Irish charts and #2 in the British charts, over Christmas (the time of peak sales). The song has become a festive classic. It takes the form of a drunken man's Christmas Eve reverie about holidays past while sleeping off a binge in a New York City drunk tank. The drunken man (Shane MacGowan) begins to dream about a failed relationship with a fellow Irish immigrant, their youthful hopes crushed by alcoholism and drug addiction, reminiscing and bickering on Christmas Eve in New York City.