Died today after a long illness. 
I first listened to The Dubliners when they did The Irish Rover with The Pogues. A guy I worked with had some Dubliners LPs and I made cassette copies (this was before everyone had computers, and before CD-Rs). I looked for the LPs to buy later, but they seemed to be unavailable. Chieftains, yes. Dubliners no. Maybe they’re available on CD now, but I don’t listen to that kind of music much anymore.
My Da drove The Dubliners to a few of their early gigs and knew Ronnie quite well. He introduced me to Ronnie’s son not too long ago in Grogan’s, nice guy.
Slán leat Ronnie. You’ll be missed.
If there was a heaven there’d be some craic tonight when the lads got back together.
I saw him playing in the Helix last December. He was in bits but managed a handful of songs. It was elegiac, beautiful. I have to say it’s knocked the wind out of my sails hearing this. I’m not usually one for being upset with the death of a celebrity.
When I was 7 or 8, my brothers and I sang a bunch of Dubliners songs at a backyard Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Carnival.
We had no idea, of course, that practically all the songs were about sex, drunkenness, or drunken sex! Picture a bunch of little kids singing “Seven Drunken Nights,” while not having a clue what the narrator’s wife was up to!
Ronnie Drew mostly sang the funny and raunchy songs, while Luke Kelly sang most of the poignant songs. But as the OP shows, when Ronnie sang serious songs, he could be heartbreaking. Nobody performed “The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda” as well as Ronnie did.
I’m sad to see him go.
Oh my… another light has gone out of the world…
