Ronnie Drew was born ninety years ago this coming September 16th. His son, Phelim, shares treasured memories of his father with Shea Tomkins and explains what it was like to be raised in a home filled with songs and stories.

 

Phelim Drew is sipping on a coffee outside The International Comedy Club on Wicklow Street, clear from the paths of rushing Dubliners as they scurry about their business in the late summer sunshine. Every bit as striking in the flesh as he is on screen, the actor and singer son of Ronnie, the beloved balladeer, is in great form and happy to share memories of his dad before he meets up with a group that he will guide on a 1916 Rebellion tour of the city.

“Ronnie was born in Glasthule, in 1934, and my grandparents rented a room in a two-up, two-down building, ultimately qualifying for a council house,” he recalls. “There were all sorts of estates cropping up around Dublin at the time, new estates like Kimmage and Crumlin, Marino and Donnycarney on the northside, and out in Dun Laoghaire there was Monkstown Farm. They got a house in Monkstown Farm.
“There were five siblings and as the family started to get bigger and the house started to get smaller, Ronnie was sent to stay with his maternal grandparents. They had won the pools and they bought a lovely house in Tivoli Terrace, in Dun Laoghaire. So Ronnie went to stay with them, and his three aunts.

“My grandparents got so used to having him there that they didn’t want to send him back home again. Ronnie’s father wanted him home, but his mother just wanted to keep the peace with her mother. So Ronnie was left to stay in the house with my grandparents.

“He’d visit Monkstown Farm regularly and go down and do jobs for his dad and that sort of thing, but technically he grew up in Tivoli Terrace.
“His three aunts absolutely doted on him. I would put his individuality and drive to make his own path in life down to the fact that there was that great love there from the aunts, and his own parents of course. But he had a difficult relationship with his grandmother, and his grandfather.

“One of his first jobs was at a haberdashery on North King Street and he got into trouble with the owners for trying to unionise the workplace. There was a row over holiday pay, and Ronnie was sacked.
“He then got a job in the Telephone Exchange and this was the answer to the three aunts’ prayers. It seemed like a solid job and they were delighted. He got a position as a male night telephonist where he met a load of bohemian-type colleagues – artists and writers who were of a similar mind – and they influenced his reading. He was introduced to literature that he otherwise might not have been exposed to.

“The music that they were listening to is what we would call today ‘world music’. They were less interested in what was in the charts, and I think that’s where his interest in traditional music came from.”

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own