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Sleeve Notes
25 years of Dubliners — Ireland's ambassadors to the world.
When a glassblower, a fabric dealer, an electrician and a lift boy met in the back room of O'Donoghue's pub on Merrion Row in Dublin in 1962 to pay homage to their passion, Irish music, no one suspected that this would be the beginning of the 25-year history of what would later become the most famous Irish folk group in the world.
The original line-up of Ronnie Drew (guitar and vocals), Barney MacKenna (banjo and mandolin), Luke Kelly (guitar and vocals) and Ciaron Bourke (guitar and flutes) was quickly joined by John Sheahan with his violin, the only studied musician among the five , who were still called The Ronnie Drew Group at the time. These five ambassadors of the Irish way of life, which always includes a good drink, quickly conquered their homeland, the neighboring island of England and the European mainland. In 1967, the five roughnecks had their first "hit" with Seven Drunken Nights, and after this song was banned from broadcasting in England, there was not an Irish pub in the world where this anthem was not sung every evening.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the largest music halls in all of Europe were open to the Dubliners, as they now called themselves after a novella by James Joyce. Her legendary performance in 1971 in front of more than 8,000 spectators, a huge auditorium for the time, in the sold-out Berlin sports hall is also unforgettable.
Many songs testify to the Dubs' commitment to their own homeland, which was divided and partially devastated by the civil war, but the old union anthem "Joe Hill" and an English version of the famous "Moorsoldaten" mark the location of the folk bards and were well understood by the audience. It was not uncommon for friends of the band and pub owners to smuggle in a bottle or two of Irish whiskey, and sometimes the whole room danced in the aisles between the rows of chairs, and John Sheahan's obligatory break announcement that everyone was retiring to "tea and biscuits" provoked storms of hilarity.
In 1974, the Dubliners suffered their first serious blow of fate: Ciaron Bourke suffered a stroke on stage and became paralyzed on one side. After a serious accident, Ronnie also left the group and later devoted himself to his solo career. With Jim McCann, who came in for Ronnie and had already made a name for himself in Ireland with his own television show, the quieter tones came to the fore in the Dubliners repertoire.
The seriously ill Ciaron Bourke also went on tour again: leaning on a shepherd's crook, he came on stage for ten minutes and sang two songs — then he had to retreat back to the dressing room. After the '74 tour he said goodbye to the stage forever. Still supported by the Dubliners, he lives with his wife in the Irish mountains.
For the following years, the Dubliners toured the country as a quartet. In 1979, a recovered Ronnie Drew returned and Jim McCann went solo, but is always a welcome guest at concerts.
The second blow hit the group in 1984: Luke Kelly died of a brain tumor that had been bothering him for many years.
"He was like a brother," says John Sheahan, "it was as if someone in the family had died."
But Luke Kelly's memory lives on: in the Luke Kelly Memorial Fund, a tumor research center founded by Dubliners on the Luke Kelly Bridge named after him in Dublin, and in the hearts of the living. No concert goes by without his name being mentioned, and U2 singer Bono Vox calls him his greatest role model.
In 1982, the group became a quintet again with singer and guitarist Sean Cannon, and he enriched the repertoire with some of his eerie ballads.
In the 80s, the Welsh cellist Nigel Warren Green also accompanied the group on tours. With the former musician of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Dubliners temporarily had a string trio together and were able to realize surprising artistic ideas.
Original German translated via Google Translate.
