Balladeer Diary - Frank McNally on the Dubliners, ‘Tonehenge’ and sculptor Edward Delaney

While taking part in a concert inspired by Dubliners (the short story collection) on Wednesday night, I was surprised to find myself reflecting on The Dubliners (of ballad-singing fame), courtesy of an exhibit in the James Joyce Centre.

The two phenomena are not usually considered in unison although, similar geographical origins aside, they do have things in common.

The musical Dubliners were a classic collection too, in a way. Also, by the end, they were almost as numerous as Joyce’s collected stories. There were 15 of the latter and, by my count, 14 of the former in various iterations of the band.

Then we have the reason they were on display at the Joyce Centre, as depicted on the sleeve of their 1966 live album, the wittily titled “Finnegan Wakes”.

Stand and deliver — Brian Maye on the ‘gentleman highwayman’ James Maclaine

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On the case – Tim Fanning on Armagh detective James McParland and his battles with the Molly Maguires

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General selection – Frank McNally on national stereotypes, Greek (and table quiz) heroes, and a stamp of greatness

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Blood brothers – Frank McNally on the deaths of two young men, one Irish, in the Korean War

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This of course includes Finnegan’s Wake, the popular Dublin drinking ballad (written and set, like the best Dublin drinking ballads, in 19th-century New York).

But the album’s title is a word play worthy of Joyce himself, who dropped the ballad’s apostrophe for his last masterpiece, Finnegans Wake, to multiply the dead protagonists and turn the “wake” into a command, as if from the Almighty on the Last Day.

The album is an accessory to a larger exhibit at the JJ Centre, an abstract sculpture by Edward Delaney (1930-2009), also called Finnegans Wake and inspired by the book.

For many years, this used to reside in Davy Byrne’s pub on Duke Street, largely ignored by drinkers. Recently, it crossed the city to its new home, where it seems to be better appreciated.

Delaney was notoriously reluctant ever to explain his work, which he thought should communicate directly with the viewer. But he made an exception in this case to explain that his piece dealt with the Joycean themes of death and rebirth, decay and regeneration.

“Personally, I am disturbed by the present travail of the world, and I sometimes fear that we may be approaching chaos,” the sculptor added, in 1966. To which I can only comment now: he could say that again.

Delaney and the Dubliners were good friends then. Hence a mysterious detail of the album cover, on which, to the uninitiated, Ronnie Drew and Ciarán Bourke appear to be holding a strange but vaguely guitar-like traditional instrument.

On closer inspection, it turns out to be a semi-abstract, upside-down, metal leg - or at least, I think that’s what it is - then soon to be feature in another of the sculptor’s creations.

Delaney’s best-known work (apart perhaps from his son, the writer Eamon, who - adding to the general confusion - was also at Wednesday’s concert) is the statue of Wolfe Tone at the corner of St Stephen’s Green.

With its backdrop of granite columns, that was quickly lampooned in Dublin as “Tonehenge”. And to some people’s tastes, including mine, its lesser-known obverse, the Famine Memorial on the other side of the stones is a finer thing.

Either way, fate decreed that Delaney would create his Tone sculpture not once but twice. The chaos he foresaw in 1966 probably didn’t include the Northern Troubles. But a few years after its unveiling, the original Tonehenge fell victim to the war on statues - a relatively innocent prelude to what would soon follow.

The IRA had started this in 1958 by blowing the Earl of Carlisle off his pedestal in Phoenix Park. Lord Nelson and his pillar soon toppled too. Then in 1971, the UDA blew up Delaney’s sculpture, turning Wolfe Tone into a disunited Irishman, in four parts.

The artist may not have been completely displeased. He soon got to rework his first version into the one that now stands.

As Eamon Delaney reminded me, the photograph of the original unveiling on November 18th, 1967, is itself worthy of exhibition. For one thing, it includes the last public appearance of poet Patrick Kavanagh, clearly unwell.

It also features a contrastingly rising man: the minister for finance Charlie Haughey, on an epochal day when the British government was about to devalue sterling, something of which he had been given advance notice.

Haughey was long after rumoured (and more recently reported, in a book by Eamon Dunphy) to have used the knowledge to dramatically transform his fortunes, and those of a select group of friends.

But mention of Kavanagh and the Dubliners reminds me again of a lesser controversy, still also lingering: the lyrics in the third verse of Raglan Road, of which I have been critical here.

Since then, I was chatting to a singer who shall remain nameless but who loves the song and disagreed with my criticisms. Any problems with the lyrics, he argued, arose not from the original, but from what many consider the classic version, Luke Kelly’s, now endlessly copied.

My man did not share the general high opinion of the Dubliner’s rendition. On the contrary. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say [Kelly] murdered the song,” he said darkly. “But that’s only because I can’t prove intent.”