Songfacts®:

• Although Thin Lizzy are remembered principally as a hard rock/heavy metal band with a unique twin lead guitar sound, front man and songwriter Phil Lynott had a softer side. This slow, sentimental song begins with an arpeggiated acoustic guitar augmented with some very subdued electric guitar from Eric Bell.
  
  It appears to have been recorded for the band's eponymous debut album in a session which began on January 4, 1971, exactly fifteen years to the day before Lynott died in Salisbury Infirmary as a result of his addiction to heroin.
  
  Rock bands and other artists often record extra tracks during their studio sessions, and this was one which did not make it onto the album, but in 1990, the original album was repackaged as a CD, and an EP called New Day was added to it; "Dublin" was the first track on this.
• Running to a mere 2:27, "Dublin" is intensely personal in parts and partly a tribute to Phil Lynott's hometown. Although he was born near Birmingham and spent his formative years between Manchester and Dublin, there was never any doubt that Lynott regarded himself as an Irishman through and through.
  In 1973, when the band were just breaking through, they featured heavily in the British music press. The March 10 issue of New Musical Express reported that Lynott was born in the Irish Republic; earlier, in THE THIN LIZZY FILE which appeared in the March 3 issue of Melody Maker, it was claimed he was born in Dublin. Phil lied about his age too, giving his date of birth as August 20, 1951. He was actually born two years earlier. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2