IN the summer of 1977, the teenage Gavin Martin instigated a riot of his own when he and his friend Dave McCullough founded Alternative Ulster, a fanzine whose title posited an identity beyond the grisly troubles besetting Northern Ireland. It gave its name to the debut single by Stiff Little Fingers (originally intended as a flexidisc for the ’zine), who became one act – alongside The Undertones,
Boomtown Rats, U2 and more – that would furnish the island of Ireland with a new, self-confident identity, of which Gavin himself was a part.