The 'grouchy' Dubliner who never lost his sense of humour

It's difficult now to imagine the giant sized Adelphi cinema in Abbey Street in Dublin, before it was divided into five large cinema's, and The Dubliners on stage and the house rocking to the rousing chorus of 'McAlpine's Fusiliers'.

It was the venue The Beatles played on their only visit to the city.

It was also the venue for a triumphant concert by The Dubliners. As a teenager in the late 1960s, the rasping voice of Ronnie Drew was the trademark of the band who, like the Rolling Stones in the world of rock and roll, had about them and their followers a "bad boy" image.

Not in the same sense, of course, or at least not that we were aware of. It was almost as if they were a reaction to the Aran sweater-wearing Clancy Brothers, whose rebel songs and clean cut image had been imported from America and re-kindled the ballad boom.

But in those early days there was a whiff of Guinness and poetry and other dangerous things about The Dubliners. There were the beards and probably what was known in those days as "loose" women, and they attracted a raffish crowd.

And, of course, there was the drink. They started out in the pub (O'Donoghues of Merrion Row) and the tales of their drinking were legendary. Yet they approached what they did with a professionalism that was rare in the feckless world of traditional music.

That night in The Adelphi marked a shift. They were out of the pubs and into the auditorium. And Ronnie ruled the stage with his hollow-eyed stare and the long black beard. He was a truly commanding spirit who kept a concert moving at break-neck speed that held the hecklers and the drunk at bay.

He held the audience spellbound as he spoke the opening verses to 'McAlpine's Fusiliers' in his bottle-crunching voice:

'It was in the year of 39

The Sky was full of lead

Hitler was heading for Poland,

And Paddy, for Holyhead'

As with The Stadium and later The Embankment in Tallaght, the various members of The Dubliners seemed to wander on and off stage at various intervals, to top up the drink, we always presumed. But Ronnie Drew seemed a constant, he was the natural leader, a conductor and the glue that held the most famous formation of The Dubliners together.

Luke Kelly had the haunting voice and the lefty politics, Barney McKenna was in a banjo world of his own, John Sheehan was the steady one who, at the time, did not drink and Ciaran Burke, a wild-eyed man from the mountains.

But ultimately Ronnie Drew was The Dubliners. Phil Coulter who produced some of their albums observed that in his drinking days he could be "grouchy and aggressive and short fused" but acknowledged that "people always forgave Ronnie because he was Ronnie Drew." I saw the "grouchy" side on several occasions and the victims of his tongue could sometimes be bewildered. But like all musicians Ronnie felt that he had been robbed along the way and, whether he was right or wrong he never forgot who the perceived perpetrators were.

But there was also a charming side to him.

On stage he could hold an audience spellbound with his stories of pub life in those far off days in Dublin with the likes of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh and others from the literary/bohemian world he inhabited. He had the deft knack of catching that lifestyle perfectly. The priest droning on at Behan's funeral in Donnybrook and Ronnie standing at the back of the church getting a tap on the shoulder and being asked "are they open yet" -- meaning the pub.

His son Phelim told the story of Ronnie going back on "the gargle" as he periodically did. Feeling hung-over the following morning, he stopped on his way into town and went into a pub and ordered a gin and tonic. The pub was empty, but for a man at the far end sullenly looking into his first pint of the day. They drank in silence and then the voice from the other end of the bar said: "I thought you were off the drink."

"I am," replied Ronnie, "but I have a gin and tonic every now and again. I find it helps me to mind my own business. Would you like one?"

He worked hard as a musician, but not as hard as others wanted him. He didn't care very much for the long haul to America where he could possibly have made a lot of money. Instead, he preferred places nearer home where he could combine work with his family life.

When he was once told that Michael Flately was making £1m (€1.27m) a week from Lord of the Dance and asked what he would do if he earned that sort of money he replied: "Work for two weeks and then stop."

But Ronnie Drew loved the business he was in. He didn't behave like a star, or expect people to treat him any different because of who he was. Sometimes he got a bit impatient about the "bullshit" that surrounded the business, but deep down he enjoyed the music.

And it didn't have to be folk music. He loved the words whether it was a balled or poetry, jazz or some old song that everybody else had written off. When it got the Ronnie Drew treatment it got another life.

"You can take the hardest rock band on the earth and they sound like bunch of girls next to The Dubliners," said Bono of U2.

But there was more to Ronnie than just The Dubliners. He had something called "soul" -- that indefinable quality that made him and his contribution to music unique.

He never lost that sense of humour either. His son Phelim recently told the story of the family being in a restaurant when he was approached for an autograph. Emboldened with his new "friend", the visitor to their table then said it was for his mother who was across the other side of the room. "Could you come over to her, she's 70" to which the still spry Ronnie replied: "She can have my autograph but she'll have to come over to me, I'm 72".

Ronnie had always seemed ageless and his music timeless, but alas, as he knew so well, time catches up on all of us.