Blessed with a voice like a bullfrog with a hangover, Ronnie Drew has been at the heart of Irish ballad singing for nearly half a century. Born in Dun Laoghaire in south Dublin  on September 16, 1934, his father was a carpenter and at first the family lived in a tenement but then moved to [...]

The McPeake family of Belfast were one of the few Irish pre-ballad boom groups. That they were better-known abroad than at home is illustrated by a story told about a conversation between Bob Dylan and Bono of U2 in 1984. The legendary singer asked what Bono thought of the McPeakes. The Dublin-born Bono had never [...]