Initially, Donie Cassidy was very reluctant to conduct this interview. His public persona notwithstanding, the showband impressario and Fianna Fáil senator prefers to stay out of the public gaze; he insists that he is a very private person.
I pointed out that he was very much a public figure again now that he is the new leader of the Seanad and that he was a living legend in the music industry thanks to his work in the showband era. Still unenthusiastic, Donie repeated that he was a very private person but promised to mull it over.
The real clincher, the thing that got him to agree to doing the interview was when he discovered that I lived in his constituency. Donie has been involved in an ongoing battle with Mary O’Rourke which saw him win the seat in 2002, only to lose out to O’Rourke in the recent election following the re-drawing of the electoral boundaries. It is, therefore, a constituency where every vote counts. Yes, including mine!
Born in 1945 in Westmeath, Donie has had a very varied career. Before getting into show business, he played minor hurling for his county back in ’62-’63 and scored in every one of his nine games. He was forced to retire from the sport at 20 because, as he puts it, “there was no helmets at the time” and his right eye opened three times in one year.
From that moment onwards he focused on playing with his band, The Firehouse Five – they did support (or “relief”, as Donie put it), for some of the biggest names in the country at the time, including Joe Dolan. After 18 years on the road, Donie who has a natural entrepreneurial bent, began to assemble a portfolio of involvements including artist management, a very successful record company, the music stores in Dublin Airport and Celtic Note on Nassau Street, Dublin. He also owns various hotels. As the man himself would admit, he is not short of a bob or two.

JASON O’TOOLE: What are your plans as leader of the Seanad?
DONIE CASSIDY: I think that the proposal that the Seanad should be extended to a 70-seat Seanad should be examined. Because the constituency should be extended to the Ulster constituency. At the moment, we have three or four members from Ulster in the Seanad, but they are from the counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. We should have a look at the Six Counties which, in their present state, should be included. We should be the ones that bridge Stormont and the Dáil at the present time as being the second chamber. Stormont doesn’t have a second chamber; in the UK you have the House of Commons and the House of Lords; in the south of Ireland we have the Dáil and we have the Seanad.
And what benefits would this bring?
The Seanad could be used as an arm to extend to the North of Ireland in an embracing way where we can make matters of commerce, in particular, relevant to the members of those specifically elected from the Six Counties of Northern Ireland. This is just a suggestion for discussion. As Shakespeare said, “To discuss is not to agree.” But, at the same time, we have to be realistic – and to see the great opportunities that are available by having the entire island of Ireland coming together from a commerce point of view, whether it’s for tourism, enterprise, trade and employment. I had the great pleasure of being in India and China on a trade mission lead by the Taoiseach over the last two years and that was a 32-county business group – from North and South – coming together to see could we bring as much in from, or sell as much into, those territories. So, it is an ideal opportunity for the Seanad that this would happen. I certainly intend to lead the way as the leader of the 23rd Seanad to see what the possibility might be.
But the Seanad appears to be very irrelevant to the public, with even the media giving it very little coverage…
I would also like to think that the relevance of the Seanad will get greater respect from the general public. And RTÉ – while they’re playing a fantastic role in relation to Oireachtas reports – and the print media, in particular the Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner, will start covering it the same way the Irish Times does. We have a fantastic, young, energetic membership of the new Seanad on all political sides. But the challenge is to convince the media of the importance of it. And the only way we can do that is to really enhance it and make it relevant on a day-to-day basis.
The last Seanad election was a shambles. I wrote in Hot Press how dead people, who passed away back in 1908 or something, were still registered to vote on the University panel. Are you planning to look at modifying the voting set up?
Now is the time to address that. Yes, only 34% voted in one of the panels in the University side and we have to address the opportunity that is available for all graduates in the country so they have an opportunity to vote. No one denies them this. I know that the Taoiseach is personally committed that this would be done at the earliest possible time. And I intend to address that. I think all graduates should have a vote.
What will be the key issues during your term in office?
In the next five years, I hope to tackle two very different things. One is the plight of parents with autistic children. I certainly think that early intervention is the real remedy here to take the heartbreak away that young couples are finding themselves in – nowhere to go with the young boys and girls or babies with autism. So, I’m going to try to do anything I possibly can through my leadership of the Seanad and my friendship with Brian Cowen, in particular, as Minister for Finance, to see how this can be addressed. I have also made a commitment to the Carers Association who are the unsung heroes of Irish society. On a national level, I took up insurance for the last five years – this time I intend to take up energy. Whether it is energy cost, the cost of ESB, cost of gas, Bord Gais. These are unacceptably high levels of prices. And then (look at) alternative energy where we must have a 20% alternative energy by 2020. I intend to take that up if I can. At the end of the day, it is all about the alternatives.
What inspired you to get involved in politics?
I suppose I was born into the party. My father was a great follower of Eamon de Valera and my family have been Fianna Fáil since I was born. Before that, my father on general election day sat in the school in Castlepollard for 52 years. Then we had a TD in Castlepollard, Jim Kennedy, who was a TD for 38 years, and he asked me to drive him to meetings in 1962, and I drove to Leinster House in 1963. So, I’ve been going to Leinster House now for 45 years. I developed a keen interest to do something for Castlepollard where I was born and reared and over the past 30 years I’ve given every Monday of my life – free of charge – to work on behalf of the people of Castlepollard and all of north Westmeath to try and improve our lot.
You have been described as the unluckiest politician in Westmeath.
In ’74, I was beaten by 14 votes; then in ’79, I was beaten by 12 votes. There was a postal strike on and it beat us over the heads, so… In 1981, inspired by Charles Haughey becoming leader of the party, Pete St. John and I wrote the song Arise And Follow Charlie and we let the great man hear it and he was very impressed with it and I put together his campaign on the road for five general elections. I was the campaign manager with PJ Mara and Frank Wall for Charles Haughey’s five general elections, and then I was Albert Reynolds’ (campaign manager). Out of all that, I became a Senator in 1982 – I was defeated by two votes in ’81. Three votes, I think it was. But, anyway, I was fortunate enough that John Bruton’s budget fell on the footwear for children and I got a chance to go eight months later. I got elected in 1982 and I have been a member of the Oireachtas ever since. Twenty years in the Seanad up to now and five years in the Dáil.
Your constituency border was dramatically changed in the recent general election, which political pundits say cost you a seat in the Dail.
The cards that were dealt to me by the Boundary Commission were a cruel hand to the people of north Westmeath. It was the people who suffered, it wasn’t meself really, because to take the entire north of Westmeath and put it into Meath was taking 2,500 votes away. The people used to say after Mass on Sunday to me, “Why did you let them do that?” The commission is independent and I’m waiting to see with bated breath what the new commission is going to do. For I have no doubt that had I the 2,500 I would have been elected and I know that I would have been seriously considered for a Minister of State. So there was a huge loss to Westmeath and a huge loss in particular to the people of Mullingar. They have been starved of representation in Cabinet. The purpose of being in public life is to get things done and to bring investment to the area. The definition of a good politician in my book is the man or woman who can bring the most to their own area.
But it must have hurt you on a personal level?
It is a personal thing, but I suppose being in politics for so long, you realise there are two steps forward and one step back. It is full of disappointments. My late father used to say to me: ‘Never expect too much out of politics and you won’t be disappointed’. And how right he was! But at the end of the day, and the swings and the averages, now to be elected as an office holder – and leader of the second parliament in the country – it has given me the status of a Minister of State. And I intend to use that for the betterment of our people here in Mullingar and north Westmeath. But at the same time, if I don’t get north Westmeath back into Westmeath for the next general election, well, the inevitable is on the cards.
The Boundary Commission has just announced their planned changes, but it didn't include any for north Westmeath.
If the government goes the full term of five years, I’ve been assured by people in position that the boundary could change back by the time the next general election is called. But if the boundary remains as is, it will be like fighting with one arm behind my back. I will assess the situation when the next election is called.
I have heard a lot about a rivalry between you and Mary O’Rourke. In the last election – she won your seat which you had taken from her in the previous election.
Well, Mary has been pontificating and blowing a lot of hot wind, quite honestly, for the last five years. But that is her style. And everyone knows Mary O’Rourke’s style. And everyone knows my style. My style is a laid-back style. I prefer to work in my own way. I find Mary O’Rourke quite entertaining with some of the things she goes on with and some of the ranting and raving. It would be unbelievable to hear what she would say if she had lost half the town of Athlone by the commission. Anyway, she was favoured.
You seem to be very kind in your words now by merely describing Mary O’Rourke as “entertaining”?
Well, I’ll leave that to another day! I think it will make a lot of good reading (laughs).
What do you make of the allegations made against Bertie Ahern?
In relation to the tribunals, I certainly believe what he says. I fully support him in public life. He has no trappings, he has nothing visible whatsoever, he lives in an ordinary semi-detached house. I have always found Bertie to be one of the most decent, hard working, dedicated people. No one has done more to help Ireland in the past 50 years. The greatest example of his commitment to public life was when he left the graveside of his mother after being buried on Holy Thursday to go back and give us the Good Friday Agreement – to give us peace in Northern Ireland. Bertie Ahern has been an incredible success story as leader of Fianna Fáil.
Do you think all these allegations are part of a witch hunt?
I don’t really know. We only know what we read in the papers or hear on the radio. Anybody who knows Bertie knows him to be a very decent and honourable man. He gave up everything in his life so that he would be the politician that he is today. He has won three in a row which is unique in modern day politics. No one else has done it in the past 50 years in Ireland. Bertie works 18 hours a day, seven days a week. He is an incredible man.
What did you think of Eamon Gilmore’s recent call for Bertie to resign?
It must be a difficult time to be in opposition with the country going so well and the economy so buoyant. I am a good friend of Eamon Gilmore and I know he is a good man and he has a lot of talent. Maybe somebody gave him the steer to go down that road. He is just after taking over as leader of the party. He might have people in there creating his scripts and getting things organised for him. He’s a pretty decent man. He has to keep an open agenda for his party because they are going nowhere. In hindsight, looking over the last 15 years, they could have still been in government if they had held their head – and not gone looking for one!
But there is an impression out there – when you look at the likes of Haughey, Burke, Lawlor and Ahern – of Fianna Fáil having an element of sleaze and corruption.
John Bruton’s quote was very apt when he said, “There’s no angels in Fine Gael either”. So, they aren’t all angels in Fine Gael. What has gone on, no one can condone. When I got elected to the Seanad in 1982, I came home and there was a band to take me into town. And my father shook hands with me that night on the stage and congratulated with me, and there were all tears in everyone’s eyes, and he said, “You are going into the Oireachtas with your reputation, if you come out the same way you’ll have achieved a lot”. And I often thought, “Why was he saying that to me?” But the older I get, I say now, “Wasn’t it a very wise comment?”
So how can we best examine and stamp out corruption in our political system?
Having witnessed everything that has taken place over the last number of years, and all the allegations that have been made in the tribunals, I honestly believe that the way forward is not through tribunals. The way forward has got to be through the committee system. In the Dail of ’97 to 2002, the Public Accounts Committee, which Jim Mitchell chaired, was exemplary – it saved the State millions; and I think the committee I chaired from 2002 to 2007, Enterprise, Trade and Employment, where we held the insurance companies accountable every year, saved the consumer tens of millions on premiums. If there is a tribunal to be held in the future, it should be held in the Oireachtas. It should be short, it should be six or seven months, brief, and would cost the electorate pennies compared to the millions it is costing now. I honestly believe that the committee system is proving to be a serious success. And why not build on it? In America it has been extremely successful and we are following a particular pattern now of an American way of doing things.
Getting away from politics, how did you get involved in the music business?
It was very easy: I left school at a very young age and the local cinema in Castlepollard had a piano, so I learnt to play. I went to fourth grade on learning to play the piano. And then I become a member of a local group called Firehouse Five. And then Joe Dolan became very famous in the early ’60s and we were doing relief (support) for him. And then we went professional on the road from ’69 to ’82. Then I had my own radio programme on RTÉ Radio 1 when there was only one radio station, from ’78 to ’81. I was on the road for 18 years with my own band.
You must have some good memories of being on the road?
I could talk to you for months about the band business. It was a heartbreak but it was a joy. I think Joe Dolan and the Drifters showed everyone in the Midlands that there was an industry here. You could make a living from it. The ordinary people didn’t think there was a living to be got out of entertainment. But there was an incredible opportunity. We played all the carnivals, starting on Easter Sunday and playing until the end of September, five or six nights a week. Everyone used to go dancing at that time three, four or five nights a week. It was just Ireland coming out of the wartime really. I think the showbands played a huge part in uplifting the people. We used to go to the UK four or five times a year and play for 10 weeks over there. And sure, it was like going to Mass on a Sunday. Everyone local was going to be there.
Do you think dance bands were better than rock music today?
I do. I think they’re more relevant – completely. I think that the day that you take away the words and the meaning of the words from music, you can forget about it. We came through this magic time. I hope the youth of today have as much enjoyment as we had. We had 600 or 700 showbands at the time giving very meaningful employment (pauses)… Drink has taken over. And you can’t compete against drink. At that time there was no money (so) you couldn’t drink, so people were able to go and enjoy themselves. And at the time there was no bar extensions; only where there was a carnival would you get a bar extension. Now there are bar extensions everywhere up to 3.30 in the morning.
Do you think the licensing laws should be re-examined?
What amount of hours do we have left in our legislation for people to sleep? There are very few. Now everywhere is open until 2.30. I think we should have a look at that in the long term. Bar extensions maybe Friday and Saturday night to 2.30am because people haven’t to work the next day, but the other five nights we should realistically comeback to 11.15pm, and in summertime possibly 12.30am. At the moment, it is just not working.
Is it true that your band Firehouse Five were one night driving to a gig and decided to stop when you came across a burning house and get your picture taken?
No, no. Gay Byrne was the biggest thing of all time on radio – and there will never be another Gay Byrne in relation to (the fact that) 50% of the population would listen to his show. But once a month, Gay would play an old diddy – jazz – and it was always by the Firehouse Five Plus Two – who are a jazz band in Orlando that lead the parade every day down main street USA in Disney. So, we said, we’ll call ourselves the Firehouse Five. Local people used to think that when they heard the jazz band on the radio that it was ourselves. There were three Kennedys in the band and their mother owned the fire station in Castlepollard.
You are perhaps better known in the industry for your management agency and your record label.
I have probably one of the most successful track records in Ireland as a small independent family record label that is still going today. My son Peter has taken it over. I formed my own management agency in 1977. Out of that I discovered a local duo – neighbours down the road – called Foster and Allen. We were recording an album and were short two tracks. It was one o’clock in the morning, it was snowing outside, and Tony Allen said, ‘You can’t go home’. My wife and I were there. So he made more tea and pulled out this old case from under the bed again (which contained music sheets) and I said, ‘I’ll pick one and you pick one’. He picked one and I liked the melody of this other song (‘A Bunch of Thyme’). We recorded it and Liam Hurley, the producer, rang me one night and he said, ‘You have a hit single on this album’. We made it a No.1 hit in Ireland.
What was your greatest moment in the music business?
Getting Foster and Allen on Top Of The Pops. I took the record ‘A Bunch of Thyme’ to the UK. I mortgaged my house – £9,000 – and I had a wife and four young children at the time, in 1982. I brought it over to the UK and the company I went with went into liquidation three weeks after and the £9,000 was gone. That’s like an equivalent of E150,000 today. So, I came back and I was fortunate that the Fureys had a big hit with ‘Sweet Sixteen’ and Mick Clerkin, who now looks after Daniel O’Donnell and made him a world star, he took over the record, ‘A Bunch of Thyme’, and we sold 700,000 singles in the UK.
There was a controversy surrounding that Top Of The Pops appearance because you had them dressed up like leprechauns.
Foster and Allen were dressed up as Barry Lyndon – the film was huge in Ireland – and Michael O’Riordan, who was involved with the label we were with at that time, he said, ‘Dress in the Barry Lyndon colours’. And we dressed up in light green. On Top Of The Pops, Adam And The Ants were on before us and they were so exotically dressed and they were really way out. And then Foster and Allen came on the scene – two beautiful gentlemen – but the media took it up, with certain factions saying they were dressed up as leprechauns.
But despite the media criticism, Foster and Allen went on to appear on Top of the Pops on numerous occasions.
I will always be grateful to Bob Geldof. There were three stages on Top Of The Pops and Bob Geldof was on one stage, Adam And The Ants were on the other, and Foster and Allen were on the other. Bob introduced Foster and Allen in Irish when it was time to do the rehearsal. And (he) created a huge respect with the camera crew because the camera crew can make you or break you on Top Of The Pops. But when Bob Geldof endorsed Foster and Allen, he then spoke in English afterwards, “I’ve just said in Irish: This is the most successful group to come out of Ireland in the past number of months and I want everyone to listen to them.” And we got a huge Top Of The Pops footage from that.
How many hit singles did they have in the UK?
‘Maggie’ went to No.14, ‘I Will Love You All My Life’ went to No.18. We had six singles in the British Top 30 in two years. No other Irish middle-of-the-road group has done it. No one before or since. Foster and Allen have sold 17 million albums in 30 years. They are still incredibly successful. They have an album and a DVD coming out for Christmas, Around The World With Foster And Allen.
One of your other big hit singles was called Who Shot JR Ewing?
At the time it captured the imagination. It was written by a guy in Cork called Rocky Stone. The song was offered to two or three other very well established Irish artists and they didn’t see the potential in it. I was going home from the office one Friday evening and I said to Tom Allen, ‘There’s a song – you might just go into the studio and record that. See how it sounds’. The whole Dallas theme was in it and Larry Hagman was shot on the Monday (in the TV show Dallas). I rang Tony Boland in the Late Late office and I said, ‘This might be of some interest to you – listen to it for a minute’. He said, ‘My goodness, who’s that?’ I said it was a new country artist that I’m going to launch. I said, ‘His name is Dallas’.
It sounds like you were making this up as you went along, solely to get a slot on the Late Late Show?
I didn’t know what first name I was going to put on. He said, ‘Is he available next Saturday night?’ I said we could launch him on the Late Late Show. I told Tom Allen, ‘You are on the Late Late Show and we have to have a Stetson (cowboy hat) and I’m changing your name!’ Tom didn’t want to change his name, but we went out anyway and Gay introduced him (putting on a broadcasting accent), ‘Ladies and Gentlemen. A brand new, wonderful Irish artist’, and Tom was taking the hat down and putting it onto his head as the introduction was being played, ‘Mr TR Dallas’, and poor Tom was looking around him and he missed the first bar of the song. But that went on to be a No.1. And not alone that, we brought it out in the UK and ran adverts in the papers in the UK. We sold 88,000 in the first two weeks. It would have been in the British charts only for we had given an exclusive to Woolworths. We pulled a few great stunts. We had an open top Mercedes in Oxford Street, Larry Hagman was below in Euston Station, and we had TR Dallas above in Oxford Street, and we had a model there who was supposed to have shot him. We’d stopped the traffic in all of Oxford Street, thinking it had been Larry Hagman who’d been shot in Oxford Street. When show business leaves show business, show business goes dead.
You caused a bit of controversy when you did a song about John Lennon shortly after his murder.
We recorded a song called ‘John Now That You’re Gone’ with Connie Lee and his brothers in Longford. The media took it in bad faith. We withdrew it. And I still think it could be a No.1. Poor Connie Lee, my great friend, has died, but his brother Pat is there still and I was talking to Pat only six months ago. It is a beautiful, beautiful song, and we may release it. I have to discuss it with the Lee brothers. It is a fabulous song. It was the timing of it. If we had held it back for another two or three weeks, I think it could have been massive.
Do you not think it was a bit insensitive to release the song so soon after John Lennon’s tragic death?
Well, you see, you just don’t know because you are trying to gauge it. He was dead over a month. We have an old tradition in Ireland: nothing happens for the first month. We waited for the month. But I think that if it had been someone that was in the rock world, or in that type of group it would have been deemed acceptable – but for someone to record it from a show band it wasn’t acceptable. The song is still as relevant today; it’s a beautiful melody and very strong words in the song, and it’s a terrific tribute to Lennon.
You seem to have a good commercial head on you to be able to produce the Lennon or Ewing type of novelty songs.
I used to bring out a song every year about an event. One song every year. We started off with His Holiness when he came to Ireland ‘Welcome John Paul’ and we had a number one with that in 1979. Then Charles Haughey was going to fight a general election and we had ‘Arise And Follow Charlie’. It was huge and the reason Charlie’s song was such a great hit song was it was a march – it was marching into battle! And then we had ‘Who Shot J.R.Ewing?’ And then John Lennon came. We had three hits out of four, which wasn’t a bad average.
You make it sound like a lot of success is down to luck.
It’s being in the right place at the right time. I was at the Country Music Awards at Nashville, Tennessee, which I regularly go to every year, and Mac Davis came out and said, ‘I wrote a song yesterday and I want you all to hear it’. He sang, just accompanied by his guitar, this song. I had my dictaphone with me and I recorded it. I came back the following night on the plane and we recorded it two days later and Mac brought it out in America on a Friday and we had it out on the Saturday. That song was called Hard To Be Humble and it went No.1 in five days’ sales in Ireland.
With the showbands being such huge celebrities in Ireland in those days, you must have had women throwing themselves at you?
I don’t think the ladies were as liberated that time as they are now. In fact, I’m certain they weren’t, because there was no alcohol involved. And when you’d be playing in carnivals around the country, their mothers and fathers were there as well. So, it was a family outing. You know what I mean? Ah, like, there were exceptions to the rule in the cities. In the main, it was Ireland coming out of being a Third World country. Sure, in the ’60s there was no running water in a lot of the houses – certainly no toilets. The showbands played a huge part in uplifting the people of Ireland, and giving them something really to look forward to. There was a lot of unemployment in Ireland at the time. It is hard to believe that we have progressed so far in 40 years and it has all been down to education.
Weren’t there a lot of closet homosexuals in the showband scene?
I didn’t know one. There were two different strands in the showbands – you had the city show bands and you had the country bands. The city bands seemed to come quickly – they’d become popular quick and be gone quick.
Was there a mafia type organisation surrounding the show band scene? For example, I heard that if you weren’t signed to certain labels you weren’t able to get gigs in certain dancehalls.
It was alleged.
So was there stuff like that going on?
It was alleged. You see, we had three or four chains – you had the Associated Ballrooms chain, you had the (Albert) Reynolds chain – and each of those chains would book, say, maybe 40/50 dates, but their ballrooms would be so close to other carnivals that it wouldn’t make common sense. But that was tried for a little while. But then the carnivals would start in April, right up until the end of September, and sure the carnivals used to pay maybe a third more money. So naturally enough, the human being being the human being, the instincts were to take the money and run, as Joe Dolan says. And that’s what everyone did (laughs). You are talking about an era that is just unimaginable. My family can’t believe that there was 3,500 people who would go see Joe Dolan. Today it is an incredible evening if they have a thousand people – but years ago in the marquees you wouldn’t get back any more if you had less than 1,200.
It is very rare now to hear showband music on the national radio. Are you disappointed by that?
I would like if RTÉ would consider putting back the Pascal Mooney show. They only have 2% listening audience from 7 o’clock in the evening. A national radio station is a wonderful resource. When I was in the music industry, there was only one station and they used to have ‘Single of the Day’, ‘Album of the Day’, and ‘Power Play of the Day’. So you knew that if you were able to meet one of those criteria, you were going to have a successful album or a successful single. It was the same in America, national radio and the industry worked hand-in-hand. They were the shop windows to let everyone know. Now the problem in RTE is: if we get a good talent in the morning, we can’t get our wares aired. You need Pascal Mooney or the likes of him back on the air. When you turn on RTÉ radio in the morning it’s bad news.
What are you calling on RTÉ to do?
All we want is the national broadcaster to support Irish music – because if it doesn’t, it will die. Irish music is a trade name. There are very few countries that can have their music of their country as a trademark and a trade name. Look at the success of Riverdance, the success of Lord Of The Dance. That’s done more for tourism in Ireland than anything that Bord Fáilte could have done – and they have been working wonders for years with small budgets. I have to salute those who play Irish recorded material. But the people who don’t are doing a tremendous disservice to the new and young Irish talent. Radio One should realise this and they should start to have a slot that acknowledges the new release, that acknowledges the power play, and acknowledges the hit single. Local radio is filling the gap in some way but a lot of my friends call the national radio station the whingers’ channel. Now, I have a great admiration for RTÉ radio – it is such a wonderful instrument – but why so much bad news? There is so much good happening out there. There should be balance.
You’ve had various successful business ventures – including hotels – but your wax museum didn’t work out. How disappointing was that for you?
I would have to agree that I think it was the location. We tried very hard. The problem with the wax museum was it was probably ahead of its time, but Ireland went through a massive recession when it was going. We opened in ’83 and we kept it going anyway. It is a history of Ireland for 200 years, from Brian Boru right up until the present day Taoiseach, Tanaiste and President. It’s a 365-day tourist attraction. Madame Tussaud’s is the number one attraction in London.
You also have some very successful music stores at Dublin airport and in Dublin.
I’ve four sons who work with me. I have resigned as director of all of the companies and they all run the various businesses now. Donal and Damien have Celtic Note on Nassau Street. Anything that has been recorded since 1927, if we haven’t got it, we’ll get it for you within 48 hours. We have a huge rapport built up with the music industry, particularly Americans. A big mail order to the States. It is quite expensive trading in Nassau Street but we are totally committed to the Irish music scene.
Did you ever try marijuana?
No. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. I used to smoke up until 1980. I have never drank. And I like the odd game of golf.