The sound of the rebirth of Irish ethnical confidence in the sixties, the cutting and ruffian voice of Ronnie Drew - lead singer of The Dubliners, was silenced yesterday. His family reported the destruction of the 73-year-old institution father of the folk music group towards the end of the day. He had been in spoilt health for a spell and died at Dublin's St Vincent's Private Hospital at 2pm.
With Drew goes the living embodiment of a mod revival of a traditional movement that still resonates today. The success of the Dubliners, first known as the Ronnie Drew Group, too led to the outside success of more fashionable folk groups such as the Waterboys, Hothouse Flowers and the Pogues, with whom Drew performed.
He was born on 16 September in 1934, near Dublin, in the port town of Dun Laoghaire, where he was elevated. As a teenager he yearned to live a bohemian life-time.
So in the mid 1950s he moved to Spain where he spent three years teaching English, learning Spanish and poring over Flamenco guitar technique. Once back in Dublin, Drew met up with the late John Molloy, an actor, wHO persuaded him to perform in a show at Dublin's Gate Theatre. And it was here, Drew claimed, where he honed his stagecraft.
In 1962 the Dubliners emerged from the back room of O'Donoghue's gin mill on Dublin's Baggot Street and their 1967 single 'Seven Drunken Nights' entered the British Top Ten. Drew was the centrepiece in the classic line up of five whiskery men playing guitars, sn whistles, fiddles and a banjo. They tackled songs already known across Ireland, but made them effectual distinctive due to Drew's vocals, once described by Mary Kenny as 'proper sawdust Dublin', and the firecracker banjo of his fellow founder member, Barney MacKenna.
Drew also appeared in Sean O'Casey's 'Purple Dust' at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin, and in 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat' at the Gaiety, and he toured widely. He released several solo recordings, including Dirty Rotten Shame, featuring songs written for him by Bono, Elvis Costello and Shane McGowan.
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