I remember flipping through a huge folder of songs Pete St. John had written; there were loads and loads of song words and a lot of nice stuff. But then I caught the title Dublin In The Rare Auld Times and the lyrics caught me straight away; it was such a beautiful text. I turned around to ask Pete that I really wanted to hear the air to this one. So it started. I began to sing it here and there, at the old Shieling Hotel, at the Embankment, anywhere we were giging back then. It was a classic from the start.
The moment I realized that I had a big one here was some night when I sang it for Luke Kelly. He was my idol and he said to me: 'Patsy, I'm tellin' you, that's a lovely song, some people are going to record it and if I were you, I'd go into the studios immediately. I don't care where you go, what you do or how you get the money, just record it because a lot of people are looking to record it, I heard it in the grapevine'.I asked him if he wanted to do it but he declined it at that time that he wouldn't do this. Sometime later, when my record was out for quite a while, he eventually did his own version.
This report about the 4 November 2011 gig in Merzig, Germany, is the final review we publish in 2011. Enid penned once more a great review, and she (and Ria) supplied a handful of images as well. That's the perfect moment to thank the "fandom writers and photographers" for their never-tireing work. You saw us giving them credit throughout the year, you've seen the names of them all, and today we want to repeat and emphasize how appreciated their work us. So, lads and lassies of the Dubs fandom, take a bow! 
There is an unconventional but good review of the Stuttgart gig (3 November 2011) by Christian Baudisch on the 
The Dubliners did an hour on the radio this morning, Newstalk - Ireland's National Independent Talk Radio Broadcaster: 
We found a very few photographs of the Dutch 7 October 2011 gig in Groningen at Flickr. 
Patsy's latest masterpiece, his new album NOW is available!
The date: 
We want to express our sympathy to all of the people of Norway, although these words seem hollow compared to the dimension of the tragedy. Still, let us promise you these few words are honest.
Yet another UK report, discovered again by Carsten: This time it's Pat Kehoe reporting on a website named Irish Music Forever, and he's writing about the gig at the Indigo2 in Greenwich on 16 Martch 2011. 
Them British reviews are still coming in! This time we have to thank Carsten Raabe who discovered a review about the night at The Royal Centre in Nottingham on 15 March 2011. It's a nice roundup of a typical Dubliners night on a blog named The Squee. The report ends with these words: 
Andrew Coleman wrote a short but nice review of the Town Hall gig in Birmingham on 17 March; here's a quote... 
Enid sent in a link to a Manchester review about the gig on Sunday, 13 March 2011, at The Lowry. David Cunningham opens his review in The Public Reviews, with these words: 
A review of the UK tour opener was posted at euVue, the North East's multimedia showbiz and entertainment magazine. Here are a few quotes by Seamus Doran: 
In February, The Dubliners visited Scotland for three days, playing Glasgow, Aberdeen and Perth in a mini-tour, drawing locals and the strong Irish community plus foreign guests like from Norway. Michael Howard was with the band again. "Fields Of Athenry" was, inevitable we might say, on the list. 
At the beginning of the year Radio RTÉ Lyrics FM presented a four-part series about the history of Irish traditional music. You can read all information and listen back now to all four programmes in the net: 