The Rare Ould Times

"The Rare Ould Times" is a song composed by Pete St. John in the 1970s for the Dublin City Ramblers. It is sometimes called "Dublin in the Rare Ould Times", "Rare Ould Times," "The Rare Old Times", or "The Rare Auld Times".

"The Rare Ould Times"
Song
from the album Rare Ould Times
B-side	"Danny Farrell"
Released	1977
Studio	Eamonn Andrews Studios
Genre	Irish traditional
Label	Dolphin
Songwriter(s)	Pete St. John
Producer(s)	Brian Masterson
singles chronology
"The Women Are Right" (1977) "The Rare Ould Times" (1977) "Danny Farrell" (1978)

Description

In the song, the narrator, Seán Dempsey, who comes from Pimlico, a working-class neighbourhood in the Dublin Liberties, recalls his upbringing. He laments the changes that have occurred in the city since his youth, mentioning the loss of Nelson's Pillar (1966), the Metropole ballroom (1972), the "Royal" (Theatre Royal, 1962). He dislikes the "grey unyielding concrete" and "new glass cages", the modern office blocks and flats being erected along the quays, and says farewell to Anna Liffey (the River Liffey). He worked as a cooper before being made redundant — Guinness Brewery gradually switched to metal kegs from the 1940s–80s and almost all their coopers were laid off.^[1]

He mentions a girlfriend, Peggy Dignam, a "child of Mary" (member of the Catholic sodality of the Children of Mary of the Sacred Heart). He lost her to "a student chap, with skin as black as coal," a reference to the large numbers of students from newly-independent African countries who studied in Dublin in the 1960s.^[2]

Recording history

The song was first recorded by the Dublin City Ramblers,^[3] who released it as a single in 1977. It has since been recorded by dozens of artists such as The Dubliners, the Irish Tenors, Paddy Reilly, The High Kings, Flogging Molly, Nathan Carter, Damien Dempsey and Kodaline. It was a number 1 hit in the Irish charts for Danny Doyle in January 1978.^[4]

The song remains popular in Ireland, particularly in Dublin.^[5][6] It is sung as a sporting anthem by fans of Dublin GAA teams.

Irish businessman Bill Cullen used the first two stanzas of the song as the epigraph for his 2004 memoir of growing up in inner-city Dublin, It's a Long Way from Penny Apples.^[7]