Simple Minds - Belfast Child

What this video is

Released 6 February 1989 as the lead track on the 'Ballad of the Streets' EP, 'Belfast Child' was written in response to the 1987 Enniskillen Remembrance Day bombing, in which eleven people were killed by an IRA bomb. The song draws its melody from the traditional Irish folk tune 'She Moved Through the Fair.' It became Simple Minds' only UK number-one single, topping the charts for two weeks, and also reached…

Why it matters

A landmark of late-1980s politically engaged British rock, 'Belfast Child' demonstrated that post-punk stadium acts could produce commercially dominant singles grounded in documentary social conscience rather than entertainment spectacle. The video's deployment of black-and-white photojournalism…

The director

Andrew Douglas Morahan (born 11 August 1958) is a British commercial, film, and music video director who graduated from St Martin's College. He was at the centre of the UK music video revolution from the late 1980s through the 2000s, directing videos for…