Ed Power: Dickie Rock was Ireland’s Elvis — a homegrown rock icon
'Before Roy Gallagher, Phil Lynott, or Bono, there was Dickie — an outlaw, a rebel, and a showman.' Dickie Rock photographed in 1998. Picture: Leon Farrell/RollingNews
Dickie Rock was Ireland’s Elvis — a home-grown rock icon who brought glamour and excitement to sleepy showband halls across the country through the 1960s and 1970s.
Strutting across the stage, red hair catching the spotlight, he was a technicolour talent in a monochrome age. With his death at age 88, Irish music has lost a figure of historic significance. As Louis Walsh put it, Rock was a “proper star”.
