Chant! Chant! Chant! were working-class lads from the northside of Dublin and were Ireland’s answer to Joy Division: at least that’s what their publicist would have said if they had one.

I’ll be highly surprised if anyone here has ever heard this band before. And I’m certain I’ll be the only one who ever saw them. I saw them one night in 1981 at the Magnet Bar which was, I think, in Pearse Street, though I didn’t know Dublin well at the time.

Outside the thriving punk scene in the North (Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, etc) there weren’t many punk or post-punk bands in Ireland at the time – The Boomtown Rats and U2 were too big for local gigs by then.

I was used to going to gigs nearly every night in London so I jumped at the chance of discovering a new band. I wasn’t disappointed.

Chant! Chant! Chant! never really made it – not to the UK and not in terms of a career. But they did release this single, called Quicksand, and I bought it.

And it seems they made it on to RTE’s Saturday morning children’s show, Anything Goes. I’m delighted to see their clip has been viewed and admired by the singer’s daughter.