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Larry Kirwan (born in Wexford, Ireland) is an expatriate Irish writer and musician, most noted as the lead singer for the New York based Irish rock band, Black 47.

Prior to Black 47, Kirwan and fellow Wexfordian Pierce Turner were the house band in Malachy McCourt's Bells of Hell in Greenwich Village. The music was an amalgam of folk, trad, progressive rock, Celtic rock, punk, and any other genre that came to mind. The group was one of the few banned from CBGB's; in the words of Hilly Kristal they were "too demonic." However, all was forgiven for they played many times at the club thereafter. They then led the new wave band Major Thinkers for some years. Their song, Avenue B (is the place to be) became a radio hit whereupon they were signed to Epic-Portrait Records. They recorded an album, Terrible Beauty, that was never released and went their separate ways after a somewhat memorable performance in Irving Plaza on St. Patrick's Day, 1985.

Kirwan has also written and produced eleven plays and musicals, many of which have been performed in the United States and Europe. The plays deal with many topics including Irish history and politics. The most popular however is Liverpool Fantasy, a "what if" The Beatles had broken up while recording Please Please Me and never made it. Five of the plays, Liverpool Fantasy, Days of Rage, Mister Parnell, Blood and Night in the Garden are published in the book, Mad Angels. Kirwan is presently working on a musical, Transport with Australian author Thomas Keneally.

Kirwan formed Black 47 with Chris Byrne in late 1989 after a jam in Paddy Reilly's Pub in Manhattan. The band has released 13 CDs including Fire of Freedom (2003) containing the hit, Funky Ceili; [[IRAQ} (2008) and Bankers and Gangsters (2010). They have performed well over 2000 shows.

Since April 2005, he has hosted 'Celtic Crush', a radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio that features artists from the 8 Celtic nations who play a wide variety of genres. He also writes a weekly column for the Irish Echo. He has had three other books published, a novel version of Liverpool Fantasy; Green Suede Shoes - An Irish-American Oddyssey, a memoir. A new novel, Rockin' The Bronx, was published in Feb. 2010.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Larry Kirwan", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0