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From: "Jean R." <>
Subject: [Irish-in-UK] Farewell, Ronnie DREW (73) - Founder,"The Dubliners" ballad group
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:08 -0700
SNIPPET: One of Ireland's greatest troubadours passed away last August.
Ronnie DREW, who founded 'The Dubliners" ballad group, was known far and
wide for his gravel-voiced renditions of many popular ballads such as
Finnegans Wake and Dicey Riley. The Dubliners were composed of Luke Clancy,
Barney McKenna, John Sheehan, Ciaran Burke and Ronnie, and were described by
a leading American music writer as "the spiritual godfathers" of today's
Irish music groups.
In 1999, Ronnie Drew performed in O'Donoghue's famous ballad pub in Merrion
Row, Dublin, for then German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former Irish
Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern.
Tributes were paid to Ronnie by many, led by the President of Ireland, Mary
McAleese, and the funeral ceremony was one of the biggest, and most
emotional, witnessed in Dublin for some time. "The Dubliners" biggest
commercial hit was Seven Drunken Nights, sung by Ronnie, which topped the
British charts. For some time, Ronnie had been ill with cancer, and early
this year a group of top Irish folk and rock singers - including Christy
Moore, Paul Brady, Shane McGowan, Sinead O'Connor, Bono, Glen Hansard and
Mary Coughlan - recorded a tribute song for him, The Ballad of Ronnie Drew.
The last two lines are: "Here's to the Ronnie, the voice we adore: Like
coals from a coal buck scraping the floor."
In a statement on U2's web site, Bono said that Ronnie "has left his earthly
tour for one of the heavens," adding: "They need him up there. It's a
little too quiet and pious." Earlier Bono was quoted as saying: "You can
take the hardest rock band on the earth and they sound like a bunch of girls
next to the Dubliners." The New York Times said in their obituary notice on
Ronnie: "The Dubliners became widely known in Europe, as well as the United
States, for bold versions of traditional folk songs." Ronnie Drew was 73.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam - "May his soul be on God's right side."
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