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.

It’s not surprising I became a singer. I always had a liking for it and you could say it was always intended. There was music in my family, my father had a dance band and we lived next to a dance hall.

I grew up on a farm, so I always had an interest in farming as well. Now, I still live on a farm.

I still do a lot of touring, but of course not nearly as much in Ireland as I did when ‘the circuit’ was going here 40 years ago, when we used to do five or six nights a week. These days, we mostly travel around Scotland, Wales and England.

I have been lucky. I have always had an eye and an ear for what people wanted. One of the highlights of my career has to be my number one hit ‘Do you want your old lobby washed down?’ — they even played it when The Pope was leaving Ireland in 1979.

I’m used to working with my family. First with my dad, then with my younger brother who worked with me until he died 14 years ago. More recently, with my two daughters. You can never beat the blend of voices from the same family.

To relax, I like being out in the fields, looking after the cattle. It’s a great therapy. I’m not a golfer and I’m too old to play football. Myself and my wife Kathleen run the farm and there is nothing easy about the work, but when I am out there in the fresh air I’m happy so it doesn’t seem like work.

I met Kathleen when we were going to school. We were both 14 and we married at 24. The secret to a good marriage is to trust your instincts. If you meet someone perfect at an early age, go ahead with it. A lot of breakdowns happen because people don’t follow their instincts.

They think they’ve met too young, then they wait and wait to meet someone else when they’re older. But, by the time they realise that the original one was the one for them and they go back for them, they’re gone! I always went with my instinct.

When I was 11, they needed someone to play the organ in my parish, Drum. I was a cheeky altar boy and I sang in the choir so I said ‘I’ll do it’. I actually sang and played that organ until I got married.

I believe in God and an afterlife. I’ve remained a Catholic.

I think a lot of things are meant to be. We are all dealt a hand of cards and we should make the best of them.

I’ve been travelling all my life but I always feel happy once I cross the Shannon to come home, no matter where I’m coming from. That’s where my old roots are — and that’s where I will end up.

Brendan Shine performs at Ballymaloe Grainstore, Sunday, Apr 14, at 8pm; Tickets are €23 and can be booked online at www.ballymaloegrainstore.com or by phone on 021-4651555.