This much I know: Brendan Shine

I’ll be 50 years on the road this year. I started when I was 16 and I still love performing.

When I grew up, there was a big shop in Athlone called Burgess. They used to say of me ‘he has more front than Burgess’. So I wasn’t shy.

I am the same Brendan Shine I was when I started out in the ’60s, the era of The Beatles. I used to go about on my bicycle with a crew cut and a pair of winkle pickers on me that would take a fly out of a midges eye, with my accordion strapped onto my back.