I was born in Scartaglen in Co. Kerry, an area renowned for its music. This little village is in the heart of Sliabh Luachra. At the very young age of five months, I decided to up and leave and go to Dublin!!Well, actually, not quite my decision at that age! - family circumstances meant that I go to Dublin for a couple of months but as it so happened I ended up staying in Dublin and being reared in the big city. I remained there until I was 24.At the age of five, a piano accordion appeared in our kitchen. My parents had bought it but I don't remember any discussion about it beforehand. One Saturday morning, my brother Henry and I were brought to our first accordion lesson. I don't remember any discussion about this beforehand either. We just went along with it. We could just as easily be going to painting or gymnastics classes.

I was five and my brother was eight and we shared the one piano accordion. Henry carried it as it was too heavy for me. I could just about see over the top of it! - I could just about see where the notes d, r, m .... were stuck onto the keyboard with sticking plaster to help us navigate our way around tunes like The Dawning of the Day and Sean South. It seemed really hard at first. Our other brother (who was a bit of an organiser) decided it would be a wonderful idea to write out long extensive daily practice schedules. So well he might. We struggled and sweated through the tunes we had learnt in the classes every day whilst he was out playing football in the sunshine. We soon got wise and complained! I don't know if it was those early days practice lists or what but after a few months, I got into the knack of playing. I started to learn some jigs and then some of the really complicated ones - reels. Playing reels was the real test. At about the age of ten, I started attending our Ardscoil Ris branch of Comhaltas. I had this great teacher there called Seamas Meehan. Seamas had real style and flair on the accordion - he played fantastic tunes with loads of cuts and rolls. Everybody considered him to be the best piano accordion player in Ireland and secretly I felt really lucky to have him as my teacher. Then there was a session every Thursday where all the teachers played - and that was really inspiring and I desperately wanted to sit down and play sessions as well - Then I moved to another branch of Comhaltas in Clontarf because I was joining the Under 12 band there. We practised every Sunday night and that was followed by amazing sessions from the older musicians (older musicians being the 18 yr. olds!) - people like Seamas Meehan, Dublin piper Mick O'Brien, and all his brothers Denis, Tom, Andrew, guitarist Mark Kelly, banjo player David McNevin, fiddlers Paul O'Shaughnessy and Maire O'Keeffe and lots more all played every Sunday night in the North Star Hotel, Dublin - The music was magic and the tunes just flowed all night. And we all aspired to be like them some day. Meanwhile in the Under 12s the fun was starting - meeting all the kids my age every week and then having long days out at the Fleadhs. Then eventually our band was good enough to qualify for the All-Ireland. And spending weekends at the All-Ireland Fleadhs were the absolute highlight of the year - in those days it was like going to the world cup! This musical lifestyle continued right up to the age of about 18. Our bands going to the Fleadhs and meeting loads of people and by degrees learning hundreds of tunes, both at lessons and sub-consciously from listening to sessions all the time. Then we started playing sessions ourselves. It was a great feeling. And we made loads of great friends. At the age of 18, all the 12 yr. olds were then looking at us and it seemed like no time ago since we were that age - and so the cycle started all over again. The following seven years were spent training to be a teacher and teaching in Dublin. During that time I used to go to sessions in Monkstown with my friend, flute-player Sean Craddock. During the week I played in pubs like The Ferryman and Kitty O'Shea's and I spent weekends and summers going to different music festivals - one of which was the Lorient Interceltique Festival in Brittany. There I met banjo player Mary Shannon and her brother flute-player Garry. We had great sessions and great fun. The group that I was with, the Clontarf over 18 band, had no backer and we asked Mary to back us on the mandola for some of the gigs. She was mighty. It brought the music onto a whole new exciting level. Lorient was the first taste I had of a festival abroad and I liked it very very much!!