Book review: A tour through Ireland’s complex pop culture history

Damian Corless does important work by just reminding us — sometimes subtly, often at full force — that the cultural history of Ireland is as complicated as the country’s political one

U2 in a photoshoot for ‘The Joshua Tree’ album; in the wake of that ground-shifting album released in 1987, a confident, outward-facing European capital emerged.

• Tax, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll: The decade that went whoosh! Brits, hits and Ireland’s cultural revolution 
• Damian Corless 
• Mirror Books, €18