The Dubliners of 2018, Seán Cannon is the only former member still in this group, following Eamonn Campbell's death in October 2017. The Dubliners, initially known as "The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group", formed in 1962 and made a name for themselves playing regularly in O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin. The change of name came about because of Ronnie Drew's unhappiness with it, together with the fact that Luke Kelly was reading "Dubliners" by James Joyce at the time. Founding members were Drew, Kelly, Ciarán Bourke and Barney McKenna. Drew, McKenna and Thomas Whelan had originally teamed up for a fundraising concert and then
Ulysses (novel) in Joyce's mind. At school he wrote an essay on the character, entitled "My Favourite Hero". Joyce told Frank Budgen that he considered Ulysses the only all-round character in literature. He thought about calling his short-story collection "Dubliners" (1914) by the name "Ulysses in Dublin", but the idea grew from a story written in 1906 to a "short book" in 1907, to the vast novel that he began in 1914. The action of the novel takes place from one side of Dublin Bay to the other, opening in Sandycove to the South of the city and closing on Howth Head