*Making More Joyful Irish Music- The Dubliners

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Dubliners Performing "Rocky Road To Dublin".

CD Review

Making More Joyful Irish Music

The Dubliners with Luke Kelly; Special Collection, the Dubliners, Outlet Records, 1997

I have mentioned elsewhere that every devotee of the modern Irish folk tradition owes a debt of gratitude for the work of the likes of Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers and the group under review here, The Dubliners, for keeping the tradition alive and for making it popular with the young on both sides of the Atlantic. Not only for the songs, but for the various reel and jig instrumentals from the old days that they have produced. Here The Dubliners produce a veritable what’s what of Irish music from the above-mentioned instrumentals to the fighting patriotic songs to the fighting barroom songs to the doggerel. Let’s sort it out a little on this CD.

In this CD The Dubliners do both modern and traditional pieces. As for the instrumentals “The Battle Of The Somme/Freedom Come Ye All’ combination stands out (as well as paying tribute to those 5000 or so Northern Irishmen who, under British command, fell in the Battle of The Somme in World War I in1916- in one day. Damn that war). For songs of Ireland “Donegal Danny”, “The Irish Rover” and “Danny Farrell” stick out (that latter one about the plight of the ‘tinkers’ (travelling peoples). For those patriotically inclined “James Larkin” will touch a chord (in his leadership of the famous strike in 1913 and as the predecessor of James Connolly as leader of the Irish labor movement)as will the searing " What Died The Sons Of Roisin" oration. Listen carefully to that one, please. I have always been partial to “Now I’m Easy” and its theme of the Irish Diaspora-Australian section. For the culturati there is “The Aul’ Triangle”, the many times-covered Brendan Behan lyrics from his play "The Quare Fellow”. Hell, there is even one in Spanish (we will not get into that issue here) “Ojos Negros”. As I always mention in discussing The Dubliners, if you are looking for some serious Irish music that goes beyond St. Patty’s Day but can still be appreciated then check out this well-done compilation. And you get Luke Kelly as a bonus. Nice, right?

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- From The Boyos- The Songs Of The Dubliners

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Dubliners performing Raglan Road.

Since my youth I have had an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. The original of that interest first centered on the blues, then early rock and roll and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music. I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. The subject of the following review, The Dubliners, is an example.

In a sense it would seem that the source of my interest in the Dubliners would be apparent. My mother’s people came over from Ireland to America on the famine ships in the 1840’s. Not so, in my youth the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Machem were all that I would listen to for Irish, and particularly Irish political, songs. The Dubliners were a later acquired taste as I delved more into Irish history several years ago. I believe that the Dubliners were a little better musically than the Clancys (and Tommy too) and certainly Luke Kelly added much with his deep whiskey-sodden voice to any song he leads.

Politically (and culturally), both groups cover many of the same songs- from traditional Croppy Boy, Boys of Wexford types to the songs of the Easter Uprising in 1916. The Dubliners, probably because they were based in and stayed in Ireland, have a bigger selection of songs reflecting the more current struggles for liberation up in the north. In short, the Dubliners measure up to my youthful standards for Irish political music. If you just want good old Irish sentimental material or party/bar music they have plenty of that too. Check out their A Pub With No Beer or Finnegan’s Wake.