Contemporary Irish friction

Brian Kennedy is a busy man these days. In fact he seems to be the living embodiment of one of his best-known songs ‘Get On With Your Short Life’. Last year he presented his own six-part BBC TV Series, Brian Kennedy On Song, which looked at the history and stories behind many classic Irish songs and ballads. The success of the show spurned a soundtrack album and a commission for another series. As well as performing throughout Ireland and the UK he also made two trips to Australia, where the album Get On With Your Short Life was released. In November he recorded a soon-to-be-released live album and DVD in his hometown of Belfast and he also contributed to the Voices And Poetry of Ireland 3CD set of poems read by famous names.

“I really love being busy,” he says before going onstage in Glasgow as part of the Celtic Connections Festival. “It’s a privilege to spend time on creative things. If you think about what you most like to do and somebody said ‘I’ll pay you to do it’ wouldn’t you do it too?”
As he prepares for his upcoming six-night stint at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, Kennedy reveals yet another string to his bow. Last July he signed a publishing deal for two novels with Hodder Headline – one of the most successful publishers in the UK whose authors include the likes of Tom Clancy, Jennifer Johnston and Faye Kellerman. Ladies and gentlemen are you ready for Brian Kennedy – best selling novelist?
“It’s all true, “ he says. “I’ve been writing on and off for a long time now and I’ve had some short stories and bits of poetry published. I actually had an essay of mine ending up on the Leaving Cert would you believe? It was about being Irish in the year 2000.
“Anyway, I’d been working away on this story and it got longer and longer but I was afraid to use the word ‘novel’. I didn’t know how long a novel should be because I’d never done it before. But it ended up being 200,000 words, which is very long. I just kept it to myself until I finished the manuscript and I was happy with it.”
According to Kennedy, the novel is a coming of age story about a young male character set in West Belfast. Presumably it’s autobiographical?
“Only in as much as I’m male and I grew up in West Belfast,” he says. “I’ve used some of my experiences but it’s certainly not my own journey. It’s about triumph over adversity with love winning out in the end.
“Shortly after I finished it I was doing an interview on RTE radio about the TV series [Brian Kennedy On Song] and right at the end I think it was Brenda Power who said, kind of sarcastically as I remember, ‘Oh I see you’ve done some short stories – is there a novel in Brian Kennedy?’ So I said, ‘Actually I’ve just finished a manuscript of a novel that I’m really happy with’.
“As I was leaving the radio building, the receptionist said there was a call for me from a lady from Hodder Headline. We met up and I gave her the manuscript. A few days later she got back to me and asked me to meet up with her. I honestly thought she was going to say, ‘Thanks but don’t give up the day job’ but she said ‘I’m going to say just one thing to you – you’re a writer. I was flabbergasted.”
Critics have attacked him in the past for dabbling in too many arenas at once. Is he prepared for the flack that might come his way from the literary establishment?
“I get flack all the time,” he muses. “There are people out there who can’t stand my records or my live performances. It’s somebody’s job to dislike what you do. If I worried that much about it I honestly wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Thankfully there are enough people who like what I do to give me a career. But I’m doing this for myself not the critics.”
But back to the business of the day. Kennedy says his upcoming Gaiety gigs will be somewhat different to his previous Irish tours.
“It’ll basically be acoustic guitars, piano and upright bass with simple lighting in a real intimate setting,” he says. “I’m really loving this shift away from those big production gigs with the all-singing all-dancing band. The audiences seem to love it too. In fact I’ve never had reactions like it.”

Brian Kennedy appears at the Gaiety, Dublin from February 2 to 8