IT should have been a warning to the establishment. In Britain, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger were no longer singing to tiny audiences in back rooms, and in January 1968, New York's Carnegie Hall was packed out on two nights for the memorial concerts to Woody Guthrie that featured Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Odetta, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger.
Frank Harte has observed that Ireland was spared "the sacredness of revival" since the custom of singing old songs had never died. Combined with a rekindled enthusiasm for traditional music, we had our own unique version of the international trend. This was the music of revolution: work songs, protest songs, pensive songs, angry songs. . .
And bawdy songs. The Dubliners' recording of Seven Drunken Nights in 1967 was banned on RTE, promptly hit the top ten in Britain and sold 40,000 copies in Ireland in two days.