A welcome period of Grace for Brendan
His career in entertainment began with a ballad group called the Ginger Men, but he left them in 1970 to go out on his own, as “a one-man troubadour”, a rung below contemporaries like Jim McCann and Christy Moore. He told jokes in between songs. After a while, he forgot about the songs.
The comedy circuit in Ireland in the 1970s was limited. In Cork, for example, the venues consisted of The Island Rooms in Moore’s Hotel, the Country Club in Montenotte, and, he says, “if you were lucky”, a slot at Cork Opera House, where he returns to do a clutch of gigs early next month. Joe Mac of the Dixies Showband will be his guest.
