The Transatlantic Anthology

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• Credits
  • Sleeve notes: Alan Robinson
  • Project Co-ordinator: Steve Hammonds
  • Remastered by Andy @ Masterpiece
  • Design: Sarah Southin @ Castle Music Ltd

• Track Sources
  • Tracks: 1, 6, 11, 15, 17, 19, 20, 27, 31, 35, 38 & 41 are from The Dubliners (with Luke Kelly) (1964, UK)
  • Tracks: 9 & 34 are from In Person … featuring Ronnie Drew (1965, UK)
  • Tracks: 2, 8, 13, 14, 16, 18, 23, 26, 28, 32, 33, 39, 40 & 42 are from In Concert (1965, UK)
  • Track: 36 is from Róisín Dubh & Greenland Whale Fisheries (1965, UK)
  • Tracks: 24 & 25 are from Mainly Barney (1966, UK)
  • Tracks: 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 21, 22 & 30 are from Finnegan Wakes (1966, UK)
  • Track: 37 is from More Of The Dubliners (1966, UK)
    • Tommy Reck is the piper on "The Cook In The Kitchen" and is uncredited on most releases (that include this tune).
  • Track: 29 is from Surrounded By Water & Off To Dublin In The Green (1966, UK)
  • Track: 5 is from Nelson's Farewell & The Foggy Dew (1966, UK)

• Notes
  • Another of the more interesting compilations, as it includes the tracks:
    • "Willie Gannon" & "Greenland Whale Fisheries"
  • These tracks rarely show up on other CD releases.

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Sleeve Notes

One of the most enduring of Ireland's Folk/Traditional acts, The Dubliners have done much to enrich and enhance the acceptance and acknowledgement of Irish music in a career that has now spanned four decades. Taking their name from the collection of short stories by James Joyce, like said anthology the band have embraced the numerous facets and eccentricities of Irish culture.

The band originally formed in 1962, legendarily in the back of O'Donoghue's bar in Merion Row, Dublin. Their first line-up featured Barney McKenna, Luke Kelly, Ciaran Bourke and Ronnie Drew, and they were at first named the Ronnie Drew Group. The individual members of the line-up had all been known faces on Dublin's postskiffle/folk scene, and figured that a pooling of the individual talents could lead to bigger things, not unnaturally. Skiffle had been an important musical phenomenon in Ireland as well as in Britain, indeed, its' main practitioner, Lonnie Donegan, could claim Irish lineage, and the good-timey, carousing vibe (and its many celebrations of drinking and woman-chasing) clearly chimed an emphatic chord with an Irish constituency.

By the early sixties, however, skiffle as a phenomenon had had its day. Donegan himself had embraced music hall and even gospel items into his repertoire, and the Beat group scene was starting to hold sway in the pop charts. Folk, roots and the acoustic singer-songwriter were musical elements that were not too far under the surface of pop, however. Middle-of-the-road acts like the Kingston Trio were popular, and Bob Dylan had ventured over to the UK as early as late '62 to appear in the long lost BBC TV drama 'Madhouse On Castle Street'. The Dubliners, after a name change, won something of a following for their judiciously-chosen selections of traditional drinking songs mixed with material of a more serious nature – they included in their sets numbers like Dominic Behan's The Patriot Game', and the tragic Kerry Recruit'. Overall, though the Dubliners thang was/is more concerned with engendering good times than necessarily wanting to make the audience think overmuch.

This collection is derived from the bands' Transatlantic recordings, where they exported their barroom ambience internationally, and proved that it travelled well. The band were, of course, an indelible influence on the Pogues, who covered such Dubs classics as Greenland Whale Fisheries' and The Wild Rover' in their time, and whose drunken live performances transposed the Dubliners celebrations of good times to a new generation. There was a price to pay for such hard living, however: Ciaran Bourke collapsed on stage in Eastbourne with a brain tumour, which prevented him from playing with the band again.

Luke Kelly died; even Ronnie Drew took a sabbatical, replaced by Jim McCann for a while. Then there were the ebbs and flows of musical fashion. Acts such as Horslips, The Bothy Band, Planxty and Moving Hearts developed Irish music in crucially different directions. Didn't prevent the Dubliners from maintaining a healthy popularity, however, and the band are still going strong today, probably playing at a local venue near you in the close future. As Keith Richards, no less, said, "the most you can say, is that they carried it on" he wasn't talking about the Dubs, but it applies. Timeless music is in here. It'll never date, 'cause it speaks of something that goes back a long long time ago, and will go on for a long time to come. As long as there's a drink to be had, and an enthusiastic audience to listen to it, the music will be there. Here's to it.

Alan Robinson, May 2000