Ronnie says he'll be bringing his grandchildren and everyone (including Barney) can wave at the entire Drew family as they lead the St Patrick's Day parade.

One of the many surprises about all this is that Ronnie Drew hasn't been Grand Marshal before. It seems like such a nobrainer: the quintessential Dubliner, maybe the world's most famous and certainly the most mimicked, opening the festivities in the capital. Ronan Keating has done it, for God's sake. But never Ronnie.

The next surprise is that he'll be 72 this year. Surprising, because Ronnie Drew has been the same age for nearly 50 years. "He was born looking middle-aged, " says his friend and former producer Phil Coulter. "I can never remember him looking young. It was a good genetic code, really, because it's worked out well for him. He looks the same age now as he did 40 years ago. If anything, he's growing into himself."

Barney McKenna is one of the few who can testify that he wasn't born with the beard . . . they grew them back at the start of The Dubliners, "for a bit of craic", and haven't been allowed shave since. The voice, though . . . or a more youthful version of it . . . was born and bred in Beaufort, Glasthule in 1934 and had the corners knocked off it by the Christian Brothers. He was a bright boy and managed to stay in school until he was 15, leaving just before the Inter Cert for a place in technical college. It didn't suit him and after a year, he waved off formal education for an apprenticeship to an electrician. Nine months later, he was sacked.

The CV gets a little crowded then. He was a draper's assistant in Capel Street for 18 months until he went to the Union of Clerks to complain about his wages. They took up his cause and the shop closed down. He was sacked from a job in Brown Thomas for being rude to a customer. He worked in an electrical supplier until, in 1953, he got fed up and moved to Spain.

Two years later, he was in London, working as a vacuum cleaner salesman. He lasted only a few months before he returned to Dublin and a job in the telephone exchange, from which he was fired for being rude to the minister's wife. He went back to Spain, where he picked up a guitar and, while teaching English, became a proficient flamenco player.

Back in Dublin, he took his guitar out to the streets and the pubs, busking and drinking until, in 1959, he met John Molloy, an actor at The Gate, who invited Drew to perform as a sort of interval act at the theatre.

He met Barney McKenna a year later at a folk club in Molesworth Street and invited him to join him at The Gate. When they weren't at the theatre, the duo began playing informal sessions at O'Donoghue's pub on Merrion Row. In the International Bar, they met Luke Kelly and Ciaran Burke and the Ronnie Drew Ballad Group was born. In 1962, they started calling themselves The Dubliners and Gillette steeled themselves for a lean year.

For a while, they were the most famous band in Ireland;

for even longer, they've been there or thereabouts. 'Seven Drunken Nights' earned them a rap on the knuckles and a Top of the Pops appearance in 1967; almost two decades later, they were back at the BBC with the Pogues for 'The Irish Rover'. In between , they toured like there was no tomorrow and frequently behaved the same way. Their drinking was the stuff of legend and their music the perfect accompaniment for the merriment of others.

By the 1980s, they were largely dismissed by the serious music establishment as middle-aged, middleof-the-road drunken bowsies. Luke Kelly's death in 1984 refocused critical attention on the band's music, and their collaboration with the Pogues (specifically, lead singer Shane MacGowan's near hero-worship of Drew) earned them a new credibility with a younger musical audience.

He had left the Dubliners in 1974 to concentrate on solo work and dip his toes into theatre . . . the group had performed, both as actors and musicians, in Brendan Behan's last play, Richard's Cork Leg, in 1972. In 1979, he reunited with the band and remained at their helm until 1995. He teamed up with them again in 2002 for a 40th anniversary tour. "He leaves us every 10 years, " says McKenna. "He likes to do his own thing."

He's released a string of solo albums, including 1995's critically adored Dirty Rotten Shame, which featured songs written for him by Shane MacGowan, Elvis Costello and Bono. Since 1997, he has worked closely with Mike Hanrahan, formerly of Stockton's Wing. Together, they produced An Evening With Ronnie Drew and Mike Hanrahan, a stage work of song and story that stuffed an eight-week run at Andrew's Lane and travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1998 and beyond.

Recently, he's been collaborating with Hanrahan and Eleanor Shanley . . . an album of their work is due out next month. As one of 'The Legends of Irish Folk', he gave full houses to The Gaiety last autumn . . . he returns there, along with Johnny McEvoy and Finbar Furey, on 28 August, a couple of weeks before his 72nd birthday.

Another surprise? He is fluent in Spanish and tremendously well-read and wellinformed. Less surprising is that the word his colleagues use again and again to describe Ronnie Drew is "gentleman".

Mike Hanrahan says he has more integrity than the rest of us put together and Phil Coulter calls him a national icon . . . "one of the few people whose voice and face would be instantly recognisable". His grandchildren just call him Ronnie.

He is, it seems, universally admired and respected. "He's one of the only people who has Bono's mobile number, " says music agent Brian Hand, who's worked with Drew for more than 20 years, "though needless to say, he never uses it."

He quit drinking a decade ago but since turning 70, has allowed himself the occasional glass of wine. Barney McKenna says he's more organised now than he used to be . . . though he reckons that's more to do with Ronnie's wife, Deirdre, than anything else. He recently discovered golf, but musical colleagues insist his time on the green doesn't signal any sort of retirement. "He's 71 going on 50, " says Mike Hanrahan. "His energy levels are unbelievable. I don't think he'll ever retire. He has so much more to do; so much more to offer."

C.V.

Occupation: Singer and entertainer Born: 16 September, 1934; Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin Educated: CBS, Dun Laoghaire Married: To Deirdre Carton, actress; two children, Cliona and Phelim; four grandchildren In the news: As Grand Marshal, he'll lead off the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin on Friday