Book review: Sounds Irish, Acts Global charts Ireland's music-industry development

"Clocking in just under 200 pages, the collection is as efficient and urgent as many of the zesty left-field records it references in its later chapters."

The entertainments circuit that developed in Ireland’s colleges during the mid-1970s provided the initial backroom teams for both U2, above, and The Boomtown Rats. Picture: Neil Fraser/PA

• Sounds Irish, Acts Global: Explaining the Success of Ireland’s Popular Music Industry
• Michael Mary Murphy and Jim Rogers 
• Equinox, pb £24.95 / hb, £70.00