Hey...someone's gotta mention this great song. When the "If I Should Fall" album came out, this one emerged as a personal favorite in the household. My husband did his best to sing Shane's part and I'd sing along with Kirsty. We played the hell out of this song...and not just for Christmas. I didn't even know it was a Christmas standard until recently.
As the years rolled along, the song -- trapped on vinyl -- didn't get played that often. But then, after listening to then mayor Rudy Giuliani speak at the mass field promotions of surviving New York City police and fire personnel, I thought of the line "The boys of the NYPD choir were singing 'Galway Bay'..." and the song went back into heavy rotation after that.
Now I'm reading Kevin Baker's "Paradise Alley" which is set in New York City of the 1860s and there's just more legends of police chiefs and fire departments and political shenanigans and all that rough, dirty, and lively history that is the core of the Big Apple.

