SAID

A lot of things has been said about the Dubliners over the years. Here's what a few has been saying:

Billy Connolly: "I first came across the Dubliners in Glasgow City Hall in the sixties. I sat mezmerised in the stalls being completely blown away. I had never seen such a collection of hairy people in my life. I had never seen such energy like Luke Kelly. I had never heard a voice as extraordinary as Ronnie Drew's. I had never heard banjo playing as amazing as Barney McKenna's. Ciaran Bourke looked like the gypsy from one of his own songs who was quite likely to run off with your girlfriend if you didn't keep a close eye on him."

The Pogues: "Everything we have done, the Dubliners have either done it or they could do it better!"

Two unknown: "So how long have the Dubliners been going, then? Forever. There's always been the Dubliners"

Ian Campbell: "I came to realise that The Dubliners had changed the nature of Irish pop music for ever. They had achieved what we in the British folk movement had only aspired to; they had reached chart popularity without prostituting their music, and they had made folksong a part of the musical diet of the man in the street. In doing so they paved the way for the emergence of De Dannan, The Pogues and U2, and countless other now and future groups. And that is why, despite the effects of time and stress, irrespective of changes in line-up and repertoire, The Dubliners are with us all for ever. Amen."

Colin Irwin: "The arrival of a three-headed monster from planet Pluto would have appeared marginally less extraordinary than the Dubliners in 1968. The Dubliners looked like they'd just been dragged out of a seedy bar via a hedge(backwards) and dropped on London from a very great height. The odd thing was they probably had. As a fashion statement in 1968, the Dubliners were an unmitigated disaster area, the only thing they got remotely right were the beards. But then again, they'd all been born with beards anyway... The Dubliners had become the unlikeliest pop stars in the solar system.