“A song puts words into people’s mouths to drunkenly sing and they might not even realise what they’re singing”: Irish legends discuss the controversy around a Christmas classic

Portrait of British musician Kirsty MacColl (1959 - 2000) and Irish musician Shane MacGowan, the latter of the group the Pogues, as they pose together, each holding a toy gun with one hand and, in the other, a Christmas cracker over an inflatable Santa Claus, 1987.

It's a song that has become a pillar of the Christmas canon, yet over the last few years, The Pogues' 1987 festive folk-rock ballad Fairytale of New York has been subject to intense debate over its use of a homophobic slur.

The controversy around the use of the word, which the band's late lead singer Shane McGowan defended in 2018 was brought to the fore by the BBC's decision to censor the track since 2020, pre-empted by an uncensored rendition during a karaoke scene in the 2019 Christmas special of the BBC's comedy monolith Gavin & Stacy.

This prompted a flurry of complaints. It also triggered heated discourse around the rights and wrongs of censorship in general.