Tom Dunne: Fond memories of the man who made Sin-é in New York so special

Shane Doyle passed away recently, leaving us with special memories of a magical gathering place for musically-inclined Irish people in the US 

Sin-é was located at St Marks Place in Manhattan. Picture: iStock

You don’t know what you’ve got till it's gone. Something Happens, used to play Sin-é a lot in the early 1990s. It was dark and dirty, surrounded by homelessness, drug issues and violence. There was no stage. The only fee was a bucket passed around for donations. It was the most exciting place on earth.

We both noticed and didn’t notice that fact. The fact that danger was everywhere, and music was conspiring to starve you to death sometimes blinded you to the fact that Debbie Harry lived up the street, or that Madonna was sending her car for someone who worked there.