Album Notes

The founding members were Ronnie Drew, Luke Kelly, Ciaran Bourke and Barney McKenna.

Drew spent some time in Spain in his younger years where he learned to play Flamenco guitar, and he accompanied his songs on a Spanish guitar. His grave voice has been compared to a cement mixer and the sound of coke bottles being crushed under a door, it is instantly recognizable. Drew left the band in 1974 to spend more time with his family, to be replaced by Jim McCann. He returned to the Dubliners five years later, but left the group again in 1995. Paddy Reilly took his place this time around. Some of his most significant contributions to the band are the hit single Seven Drunken Nights, his rendition of Finnegan's Wake, and McAlpine's Fusiliers.

Luke Kelly was more of a balladeer than Drew, and he played chords on the five-string banjo. Kelly sang many defining versions of beautiful songs: traditionals like 'The Black Velvet Band', 'Whiskey in the Jar' (later played by metal bands Thin Lizzy and Metallica), 'Home Boys Home'; but also Phil Coulter's 'The Town I Loved So Well', Ewan McColl's 'Dirty Old Town' also recorded by The Pogues and 'Raglan Road', written by the famous Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. Kavanagh met Kelly in a pub, and asked him to sing the song. It was later recorded by artists like Mark Knopfler, Van Morrison, Sinéad O'Connor and many others. In 1980, Luke Kelly was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Though first the chemotherapy seemed to work, after a while things started getting worse again. Knowing his time would not be long, the band took on a replacement in 1982, Sean Cannon. Sometimes Kelly was too ill to sing, sometimes he joined the band for a few songs, and sometimes he collapsed on stage, but he didn't stop touring with the band until 2 months before his death. One of the last concerts he took part in was recorded and released: 'Live in Carré' (Amsterdam, Holland), released in 1983. John Sheahan introduces him when he comes on, and explains that he went for a walk and got lost, but obviously that wasn't the real reason he was late. In November 2004, the Dublin city council voted unanimously to erect a bronze statue of Luke Kelly. Kelly is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Ciaran Bourke was a singer, but he also played the guitar, tin whistle and harmonica. He sang many songs in Gaelic ('Peggy Lettermore'; 'Preab san ol'). In 1974 disaster struck for Ciaran Bourke: he collapsed on stage after having a brain hemorrhage. First he made a miraculous recovery, but then he collapsed again, this time paralyzed on his left side. Bourke died in 1988. The band always kept hoping for his return; they never officially took on an official fifth member before his death, and they never stopped paying him.

Barney McKenna is a talented tenor banjo and mandolin player. In the Dubliners' stage shows he sings sea shanties and love songs to minimal instrumental accompaniment. He is also well known amongst friends, colleagues and fans as a great teller of tall stories and jokes.

John Sheahan and Bobby Lynch joined the band in 1964. They had been playing during the interval at concerts, and usually stayed on for the second half of the show. When Luke Kelly moved to England in 1964, Lynch was taken on as his temporary replacement. According to Sheahan, he was never (and still has not) ever officially been asked to join the band. Sheahan is the only member to have had a musical education.