The folk singers speaks about writing one of the most poignant songs on the Troubles, losing his brother in a car accident, and Ireland’s Eurovision boycott

Irish singer songwriter Tommy Sands performing in support of the Harland and Wolff workers calling for the shipyard to be renationalised, in 2019. Photo: Getty Images

Irish singer songwriter Tommy Sands performing in support of the Harland and Wolff workers calling for the shipyard to be renationalised, in 2019. Photo: Getty Images

In 1973 Tommy Sands was in rural France, far away from Northern Ireland, when the inspiration for one of the defining songs about the Troubles came to him. “There were roses growing outside the house where I stayed with my then girlfriend [Anne Sands], who later became my wife and they reminded me of home,” the folk legend recalls.

“I remembered the roses planted by my father and pruned by my mother and how they would be used at weddings and funerals or maybe placed in a well-washed jam jar on the kitchen shelf. I thought of the rose’s association with Britain and the way we are sometimes united in grief.”