A FEW weeks ago I found myself in a little park in east London eating chips with Kevin Rowland.

For a very pleasant and surprising hour or so we chatted about life and about Irish reunification.

I’d just interviewed Rowland about his new album, Love. We’d got on well and went for a bite to eat. I was glad about this. I’m a fan and it’s hard to interview people you admire and who have meant something in your life.

The album, produced by Belfast great David Holmes, is well worth your time. It’s the first one Rowland has named as a Dexys Midnight Runners record since 1985.

Cormac Moore: Éire, the Republic, Northern Ireland and ‘the North’ – what’s in a name?

Chris Donnelly: Political unionism wants to set society back a generation with Drumcree crusade

There have been three new ones since under the Dexys moniker – we don’t need to get lost in the reeds of Kevin Rowland’s naming conventions here – but it’s a significant thing to reclaim that name. It feels like we’re at a moment.

The record is well worth your time, incidentally. Holmes has found something that goes back to the itchy, northern soul stomp and sweep in Dexys DNA, but added an expansive reach, and a melancholy tug. He’s not one of the key soundtrack creators of our age for nothing.

And Rowland has dug in too. Love covers his three lifetime concerns – Ireland and his Irish identity, his relationship........

© The Irish News