At the age of 17, Brian Prendergast followed a long family tradition of finding a career in music through the army. He’s now the Cork-based conductor of one of the defence forces’ best bands, writes Richard Fitzpatrick.

As a piper played a lament, sheets of rain shrouded the tears of relatives yesterday in the yard of the Old Cork Prison where the 1916 rebel Thomas Kent was executed 100 years ago.