Tuesday TV Tips: The song too rude to be aired in Ireland
The Dubliners in 1963, a few years before they recorded Seven Drunken Nights
The chorus is just so familiar once you hear it and was even taught in schools once upon a time: "Ah, you're drunk, you're drunk you silly old fool, Still you can not see..." but the song is so 'raunchy' that it was banned from our national airwaves.
This is the story of the banning of . 1967 is the year a ditty from The Dubliners proved a little too much for RTÉ.
The song tells of a gullible drunkard returning night after night to see new evidence of his wife's lover, only to be duped by increasingly implausible explanations.
1967 is known as the summer of love. Hippies in San Francisco were in full flight, Elvis married Priscilla, London was swinging and the Beatles released Sgt Peppers. But as Ronnnie Drew noted: "In 1967 Ireland or parts of it were living in the 30s when you couldn’t mention such things as S.E.X…..you could spell it but you certainly couldn’t say it.”
“I’m sure whoever was responsible in Radio Éireann would say now weren’t we terrible gobshites.” – Ronnie Drew.
Slowly the song started creeping up the English charts surrounded by the big chart acts of the day, The Beatles, The Rolling stone, The Kinks…….but RTÉ decided its subject matter was not acceptable. The band was delighted with the publicity. They even sent a letter to the Taoiseach asking for him to intervene, as their success was now bringing them to venues like the Royal Albert Hall.
Headlines in newspapers and the letters pages were filled with reaction to the story.
“If it is good enough to get into the English charts, surely its good enough to be played on RTÉ!” – signed broadminded girls from Balbriggan.
The public voted with their wallets: went straight to Number One here.
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