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Sleeve Notes
It really only seems a couple of years back when a get together with the Dubliners after one of their tours was a regular affair. You could find two or three of them having a few pints in O'Donoghues of Merrion Row or one of the surrounding pubs, maybe even in Patti Groome's Hotel … Perhaps you'd find yourself in Luke's house, just off the canal, or Ciaran's in Rathgar — a great session would take place wherever it was and if you got up for work in the morning twould be a wonder. More likely you'd crawl down to your local for a 'cure' or 'hair of the dog', that's if you got home at all!
Wherever you'd find yourself, you'd fondly remember, as I do now, the marvellous music and the musicians — not just the Dubs themselves, but pipers Seamus Ennis and Liam Og O Floinn, singers like Joe Heaney from Connemara who sang in the old style, Sean Nos we call it, Pecker Dunne, the big travellin' man and Breandan O Duill from Radio Eireann …
Seven Drunken Nights were often the result indeed, but hardly to the extent that we couldn't recognise who was in our own bed as Ronnie tries to make us believe was the case in the title song.
Most of the ballads here are self-explanatory and all are Irish except for Black Velvet Band which is by the famous Scottish singers Ewen McColl and Peggy Seeger as is Dirty Old Town. Sam Hall is an Irish American ballad from the 1800s. A word to the unwary, Finnegan's Wake was first collected, to my knowledge, by my old grandma O Lochlainn in Kilkee in 1870, long before Joyce wrote his famous and almost incomprehensible tale.
You've all heard of Brendan Behan of course. He would have been at some of those parties too, God rest him, telling stories and probably singing his Auld Triangle with the rest of us joining in the last couple of bars.
There's still the odd party or two but, after all, the Swinging Sixties were a while back and we're at bit longer in the tooth now. Luke and Ciaran have passed on, so it's not really the same anymore.
Anyway the songs are here. So, while you're enjoying them and joining in, why don't you raise your glass in memory of those grand old days and drink to the Original Dubliners.
Slainte!
Dara O Lochlainn
