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.