Biography

In 1963 I joined the fledgling RTÉ national television station as a cameraman, but I also found himself right in the middle of the Irish folk revival of the 1960's as the folk correspondent for hugely popular Spotlight magazine. I became a performer and I also wrote songs for Johnny McEvoy, Danny Doyle, The Fureys and Davy Arthur, The Wolfe Tone and The Johnstons

In 1967 I changed sides of the camera to present Balladsheet and I also toured the country on the expanding folk circuit, presenting Preab Sa Cheoil for RTÉ radio

America beckoned in 1971. I lived in Norwood, Massachusetts and sang at The Harp & Bard chain of restaurants. My next move in America was to Nashville, Tennessee to front Tara, Restaurant and Bar. I moved to Cape Cod in 1975 and sang all summer in Mitchel’s Steak House.

I returned to Ireland in November 1975. With the help of producer Joe O’Donnell, I revived my television career on Hullabaloo, a zany popular children's television show.

My front-of-camera career took a back seat from 1978. I worked as the Press & Publicity Executive for RTE 2 until April 1980, when my song What’s Another Year sung by Johnny Logan, I won the Eurovision Song Contest.

In autumn of 1988, I got my biggest break when I began hosting an oddball chat show called Nighthawks set in a fictional diner, Nighthawks was broadcast “live” three nights a week for four years. It had a combustible mix of straight interviews, comedy sketches, music and mad-cap soap opera and it became a huge cult hit.

When Nighthawks finished in 1993, I was asked by, producer Bill Hughes to front a 26 Part series, Music City USA. We did a second 26 Part series again in 1994 and I got to interview my all-time idol Johnny Cash.

Over the next ten years I made films and wrote songs for musicals. I thought I had finished with television but then, four years ago, I reluctantly joined the judging panel on a country n’ Irish talent show, GLOR TIRE which is filmed in Galway for TG4. It was a good move. I love it.