So. Farewell Then, Jim McCann

Sweet-voiced folk singers are as ladies of Shalott – their gift is their curse. The vogue is for the folk singer to have that bit of grit in the voice, with the late Ronnie Drew being primus inter pares of the species. Sweet-voiced folkies are viewed with suspicion, like opera singers slumming it until they get the call from La Scala.

All nonsense, of course. All musical terms are hard to pin down in prose, and to explain what it is that makes a voice sweet is a task beyond your correspondent. A sweet voice is something that you know when you hear it, and you heard it every time Jim McCann stepped up to the mike.

McCann, the man who replaced the unreplaceable Ronnie Drew in the Dubliners from 1974 to 1979, is the latest of that iconic ballad group on whom time has been called by the Great Barman in the Sky. He will be a footnote in today’s papers, and that’s a pity. His talent and artistry deserve more than that.

All their talent and artistry deserved more than that. John Sheahan’s son is an enthusiastic archiver of the band’s work, and there are a small, devoted gallant band of posters to YouTube who post some of the most glorious clips, many not seen since first broadcast all over the world over twenty-five years, each one a treasure in its own particular way. God bless them in their mission.

Hard-line folkies didn’t believe in recorded music, as such. Frank Harte, the great singer of Chapelizod, believed a song only existed at the moment of its being sung. It’s likely that McCann, and Ronnie, and Luke, and the rest believed that too, or else simply believed that singing was something you did to pace your drinking. It’s hard to imagine Coldplay or some other bunch of Gawd-help-us musos noodling around in the studio if the Dubliners were waiting outside, looking at their watches.

You can hear this disregard for the process on McCann’s version of Spancil Hill on the Fifteen Years On record – he fails to hold the notes on “dreaming” in his gorgeous cover of that gorgeous song. Why didn’t they just record it again? Too close to closing time is the most likely answer.

Is this neglect a bad thing? Is neglect even the correct word? Records by the ’sixties folkies like the Dubliners or the Clancys, or even the obscure records by the Grehan Sisters or the great Anne Byrne, should be thought of more as artefacts than things to stand with Blonde on Blonde and Pet Sounds. Besides; what does an album mean anymore in the Age of the Download?

In their recordings, we can get a glimpse of what Jim McCann and the rest of the Dubliners were like in their pomp, but it is only that. A glimpse. A fleeting moment.

Katy Perry, God bless her, does her thing for the telly. In real life, she might not make the same impression. With the Dubliners, it’s different. The recordings confine them in a way they were not meant to be a confined. A song is a song when it’s sung. Not before, not after. Katy Perry does the same show in Berlin, in Bali or in Birmingham. With the Dubliners in their prime, anything could happen from the first strum on the guitar.

So what, then, was Jim McCann like? He was a funny man – that’s clear from his appearance on the legendary Late Late Show Tribute to the Dubliners. He was a patriot – he always made a point of telling the story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Mary Plunkett before singing his greatest hit.

McCann had a successful solo career before and after the Dubliners, so his time with the Dubliners never fully defined him. But it is a reasonable argument to make that the five-year match between the Dubliners and Jim McCann brought out the best in each. He slowed them down a little, and let the music breathe. For their part, the Dubliners' artistry and virtuosity added embellishments to McCann’s voice and guitar that session musicians never could.

As a singer, Jim McCann will be remembered for the sweetness of his voice in songs like Carrickfergus, Boulavogue and Four Green Fields. But his Spanish Lady is the definitive recording of that liveliest of songs and McCann also recorded as blood-curdling a rendition of Follow Me Up to Carlow, a very ensanguined song to begin with, as was ever put on record. There was more to him than that soft cooing in the heather.

McCann’s greatest song, in your correspondent’s opinion, was Easy and Slow. It was another considerable hit for him, showcasing the true beauty, subtlety, sweetness and colour of McCann’s extraordinary voice.

I remember him singing it on an RTÉ series of the very early 1980s, strolling down along Thomas Street, down to the Liffey, and the impression it made has stayed with me in the thirty years since. I hope, in honour of his spirit, that clip appears on YouTube soon.

And in that thought, here’s another recently discovered classic, McCann singing Carrickfergus with the Dubliners in their prime from 1977. Ag moladh Dé leis na n-aingil go raibh Jim McCann, seisean agus a ghuth binn galánta.

So. Farewell Then, Barney McKenna

There's a case to be made that Barney McKenna was the champion drinker of the Dubliners. Drink killed Ciarán Bourke, it made Ronnie Drew leave the group for five years, and it killed Luke Kelly.

But McKenna outlived them all and, although his death was sudden, he was spared his comrades’ mortal suffering. Yesterday, the day before Good Friday, he nodded off to sleep in his own chair in his own kitchen, and never woke up again. Would that we all are afforded such a luxury.

Kieran Hanrahan said yesterday that it was McKenna’s virtuosity that made the banjo popular as a traditional instrument in Irish music. It was not considered a “proper” instrument before that.

The banjo’s great virtue is also its great vice – it’s loud. You can hear a banjo at the back of the pub, above the roaring and the gulping. But when you’re that loud, it’s hard to be particularly tender. Steve Martin, no bad man on the banjo himself, once remarked that you can never play a sad song on the banjo, because it always comes out happy.

He never heard Barney McKenna play Ar Éirinn Ní Neosainn Cé hÍ.

I saw the Dubliners, once. It was in the Gaiety, ten years ago, when all the surviving members assembled to do their thing. They were old men then, and there was a strong sense of nostalgia in the hall, but there was also the odd crackle, the odd taste of what it might have been like to hear them in their roaring boy prime. That would have been something.

The band always liked to make a fuss over Barney McKenna, and his virtuosity. McKenna addressed this that night in the Gaiety – before playing his solos he said that he knew he had a reputation or drink and nights out, but he wanted to make clear, to anyone listening in the audience, that he didn’t become a virtuoso in the pub. He learned to play at home, by practicing, practicing, practicing. He would view a title like “champion drinker of the Dubliners” with a jaundiced eye.

Barney McKenna was a hero of Irish music, and his loss grieves our battered nation. He was first and last a Dubliner of course, in every sense of the word, but we should also remember his short but stunning TV series with Tony MacMahon, The Green Linnet. The two men toured Europe in a small green Citreon Fourgonette van in the summer of 1979, echoing the footsteps of the wild geese of the 18th Century. It wasn’t an easy trip, and neither man spoke to the other for twenty-five years after it.

Happily, the made up in 2006, each man being big enough to admit his own fault. Life is short and brittle. Only the art survives.

Here are Mac Mahon and McKenna playing My Love is in America, somewhere in Germany, on The Green Linnet TV series in that warm European summer of 1979. Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síoraí ar anam usual Barney McKenna, ceoltóir, ealaíontóir, Bleá Cliach. Rinne sé a chuid ar son na hÉireann.

Oidhreacht Ronnie Drew

Foilsíodh leagan an ailt seo i Foinse, nuachtáin seachtainiúil na Gaeilge i rith an deiridh seachtaine, agus táim buíoch go leor dóibh. Táimid go léir ár ndualgas a dhéanamh ar son Ronnie bocht, agus eisean imithe anois ar slí na fírinne.

Suimiúil go leor, i rith na seachtaine, féachaint ar cad a scríobhadh faoi shaol agus shaothar Ronnie Drew, ceoltóir, cainteoir agus croí mór na Dubliners. Bhí an tuairim amach go mbeidh pléaráca a chuireadh níos láidre ná pléaráca Tim Finnegan féin, an tógálaí ar a chlú a sheinneadh Ronnie Drew féin comh minic.

Rinne Ronnie Drew a chuid féin faoina fhinscéal féin. Ba bhreá leis scéal a insint faoi uair ar bhuail sé le Patrick Kavanagh ins na seascaidí, ach níorbh fhéidir leo deoch a fháil toisc nach raibh tigh tábhairne i mBleá Cliath ann gan coisc ar cheachtar nó an mbeirt acu.

Ach bhain níos mó le saol agus saothar Ronnie Drew ná an t-ól. Tá trua agam ar an lucht óg, nach bhfuil aithne níos fearr acu ar Ronnie Drew ná seanfhear baol tinn nó an t-amhrán ainnis sin, The Ballad of Ronnie Drew. Bhí Ronnie Drew níos laidre ná sin, agus mairfidh a chlú go deo mar ball den lucht a thóg ceol na hÉireann slán nuair a bhí sé i mbaol a chailliúnt go deo.

Bhí an t-ádh le mo ghlúin féin gur chonaiceamar agus chualamar Ronnie Drew agus na Dubliners ag deireadh na h-ochtóidí, nuair a líonadh a sheolta arís agus siad ag seint leis na Pogues. Is cuimhin liom go maith - agus is féidir an scannán a fheiceáil fós ar You Tube beannaithe - nuair a bhíodar ar Top of the Pops i 1987 ag seinm The Irish Rover. Is cuimhin liom fós freisim titim mo chroí nuair a d'fhágadar an ardán agus tháinig Curiosity Killed the Cat in a n-ionad. A léitheoir, cé atá ag éisteacht le Curiosity Killed the Cat anois?

Ach ní raibh ann ach blás a n-iar-ghóire. Chun tabhachtach Ronnie Drew agus na Dubliners a thuiscint i gceart, caithfear dul siar chuig na caogaidí, aimsir bhocht dhuairc in Éirinn. Seinneadh an ceol sa Chlár agus i gCorca Duibhne fós, ach ní raibh aon meas ag an bpobal mór ar a cheol agus a n-amhráin féin.

Ansin, an t-athrú; bhí an t-ádh dearg ag an gceol gur tharla an aiséirí cheoil tíre i Méiriceá, agus nuair a tháinig an scéal abhaile go raibh ceathrair Gaeil ó Thiobraid Árann agus Ard Mhaca ag canadh Brennan on the Moor i Halla Carnegie, Nua Eabharc, thit sé ar na Gaeil seans go mbaineann níos mó leis na sean-amhráin ná an ganntanas agus an bochtanas agus an drochshaol.

Bhí an tír réidh a h-amháin féin a ghlacadh, agus ba iad na Dubliners na buachaillí a bhfillfeadh iadsan ar áis dí. Bhí sár-cheoltóirí ag na Dubliners i John Sheehan ar an bhfidil agus Barney McKenna ar an mbainseo, rud a chabhraigh na seancheoltóirí, na fir a choinneáil an ceol beo, na Dubliners a ghlacadh mar cheoltóirí, fir ina mbeadh an ceol slán ina seilbh. Bhí Ciarán Bourke sa Dubliners mar fear mór an chultúir, a chasadh amhráin Gaeilge leo roimh a theip a shláinte air. Bhí duine de na n-amhránaí is fearr riamh acu i Luke Kelly, agus bhí Ronnie Drew acu.

Ní raibh an guth is binne riamh ag Ronnie Drew, ach thug an guth searbh garbh sin bua do na Dubliners nár dtabharfadh guth níos binne, agus is í sin an fhírinne. Nuair a chloistear guth Ronnie Drew ag seinm faoi fhir ag obair ar bhóithre Shasana, nó ar an seanbhean sin Dicey Reilly a bhí tógtha go dona leis an ól, bhí fios agat gurbh é an fíorscéal atá le cloisteáil agat. Tar éis na céadta bliain ag tabhairt meas don duine seo nó an duine siúd, ba é Ronnie Drew Gael a ndéarfadh "seo mo ghuth féin, agus mura dtaitníonn sé leat teigh chun an diabhal a mhic."

Fear misneach cróga ab ea Ronnie Drew, a sheas nuair a raibh fonn ag an tír ar dhaoine a sheasamh ar a son agus ar son a cultúir. Níl eolas againne ar saol slí na fírinne, ach má tá an ceart ann sa domhain seo chugainn nach mbíonn ann i gcónaí sa domhan seo againne, tá Ronnie agus Luke agus Ciarán, agus Bob Lynch bocht freisin, ag seinm arís le chéile. Agus guím freisin go mbuailfidh Ronnie le Paddy Kavanagh bocht, file mór na tuaithe, agus go ngeobhaidh siad tigh oscailte dóibh tar éis an tsaoil.





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So. Farewell Then, Ronnie Drew

How shocking it was to hear this afternoon that Ronnie Drew is gone at last at the brave age of seventy-three, a little over a year since the passing of Tommy Makem. We knew that he was ill, but there’s an awful finality about death, a never no more that brooks no argument.

Ronnie Drew has been a public figure in Ireland for over forty years. That’s a long time. Is it possible that every generation has their own Ronnie Drew? In the recent documentary September Song, made by his son Phelim, Ronnie Drew was surprisingly dismissive of his legacy, even the notion of him having a legacy in the first place. “I never did anything much,” he kept saying during that lonesome film.

A generation may now know him only as the feature of that recent travesty, the wretched and depressing Ballad of Ronnie Drew – what other evidence have they? The Dubliners got very old in the past decade, and Ronnie Drew no longer toured with them. Their last recording of significance had Paddy Reilly replacing Ronnie Drew as the band’s frontman. To fully understand Ronnie Drew and his role in Irish life, if there is such a thing as Irish life, it’s necessary to excavate further.

Ronnie Drew and the Dubliners came into the consciousness of my generation – children of the 1970s – when they appeared on the Late Late Show tribute to the Dubliners in 1987, twenty-one years ago. Ronnie Drew and the Dubliners themselves were initially apprehensive about the program, not least as it was made only three years after the death of Luke Kelly, the Dubliners’ greatest talent. In Luke’s absence, Ronnie Drew became the personification of the band, their grit and attitude, and they enjoyed a return to the bigtime when they returned to Top of the Pops, twenty years after their first appearance, to guest with the Pogues on their version of The Irish Rover.

The Pogues saw The Dubliners as their trailblazing forebears, in terms of singing and drinking. It’s hard to say if the Dubliners themselves ever really knew what to make of the Pogues; they certainly didn’t see themselves as handing on any torches to Shane McGowan et al.

Ronnie Drew was unconcerned with his legacy; he seems a man that just didn’t want to go back working for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The Dubliners were one of the acts in the Phoenix Park welcoming back the Irish soccer team after either the 1990 or 1994 World Cup. After a song, Ronnie Drew quipped that the crowd were to tell their Mammies and Daddies that The Dubliners would be playing in the National Stadium later in the week. Whereas the crowd should have answered in one voice “no, Ronnie – we’re here to see you, and to inherit and gladly accept the birthright that you’re passing on to us.” But they didn’t, of course. They never do.

Come West Along the Road, RTÉ’s magnificent and essential archive program about Irish traditional music, featured The Bothy Band last Friday, and presenter Nicholas Carolan remarked that some acts are so revolutionary that it’s hard to recognise just how revolutionary they are, as the revolution has become the accepted norm. If that was true of the Bothys, how much truer is it now of The Dubliners?

When we think of Irish traditional music, we think of ballad groups. But prior to The Dubliners, there were no ballad groups. There was John McCormack, Ruby Murray and the Batchelors, and that was it. Music was being played and sung as it has been for generations in Clare and Corca Duibhne and places like that, but nationally, it didn’t exist. It took the international folk boom of the sixties, and the success of the Clancys and Tommy Makem in America, to legitimise Irish music to the Irish nation, and the blessing is that it happened at just the right time.

A confluence of talents – Seán Ó Riada, the Clancys and Tommy Makem, The Dubliners, Donal Lunny, Christy Moore and others were all in the right place at the right time to breathe new life into the old forms, and to save the music just as surely as the language is lost. Irish singing was always done solo – to sing to accompaniment of guitar, banjo and fiddle was no less revolutionary in the staid sixties that the Pogues’ London punk infusion of twenty years later.

How revolutionary were the Dubliners? Ronnie Drew always said that America didn’t know what to make of them – the suits suggested they weren’t weirdoes, but the beards man, the beards! Had the G-Men heard that, a few weeks after Nelson’s Pillar was blown up by the IRA to commemorate the Rising in 1966, The Dubliners brought the Admiral’s head on stage with them at the Olympia, they might have needed more than suits to get the band their US visas.

In a national context, before Ronnie Drew formed The Dubliners, there was nothing. Ciarán Mac Mahuna said he’d meet fiddlers down the country who used to hide their instruments, and he had to coax them to play. Ronnie Drew and The Dubliners destroyed that stigma forever, and this is why he and Luke and Ciarán are together again now in that little piece of paradise that is reserved solely for heroes of the Gael.

I don’t know what plans RTÉ have to commemorate Ronnie Drew’s passing; I just hope the national broadcaster doesn’t let the nation down. Just repeating September Song would be bitterly disappointing. A repeat of the Late Late Show Tribute to the Dubliners would be more in keeping the momentous nature of Ronnie Drew’s passing – the show had an air of “beloved entertainer” about it which was one of Gay Byrne’s few weaknesses, but the performances remain outstanding and vivid in the memory.

What would be really wonderful, however, and what would perhaps go furthest to clearing away the cobwebs and showing just how revolutionary the Ronnie Drew Folk Group and The Dubliners were, would be a broadcast of O’Donaghue’s Opera, insofar as it can be broadcast.

O’Donoghue’s Bar on Merrion Row, D2, was the seedbed of the Irish traditional and folk revival in Dublin in the 1960s, and a short film was set there based on the ballad “The Night Before Larry Was Stretched.” The short highlights that exist on You Tube are startling and remarkable forty years on, and feature a young Ronnie Drew – how raven black is his beard! – as the eponymous Larry. Reader, imagine what it was like to be in the midst of it at the time, and there, at last, we'll have found the true Ronnie Drew.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam uasal Ronnie Drew, laoch mór an cheoil, agus go tseinne sé ceol binn bríomhar na nGael go sioraí lena gcomráidithe Luke agus Ciarán, atá imithe roimhe agus atá buailte go léír le cheile arís i bhFlaithis.








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