Ireland's Own Magazine October 2006 From the priesthood to TV, the concert stage and recording studios with a succession of hit albums has essentially been the life and times of popular Cork tenor Finbar Wright. Both as a solo singer and one of the Irish Tenors, Finbar has a legion of fans not only in Ireland but right across the world including the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Outside of the U2, the Irish Tenors are the most popular touring act in the US, no mean achievement in what is considered the most competitive entertainment environment in the world. The Irish Tenors and Friends series went down extremely well with RTE 1 viewers during the summer, and the good news is that [Finbar is] preparing for a nationwide tour starting in Kilkenny on October 6. (This is a solo tour by Finbar not the Irish Tenors) There is also a Christmas special (with the Irish Tenors) on RTE 1. Over lunch in a Dublin hotel Finbar comes across as he does on television and in concerts, as a very likeable person with no airs or graces and one who genuinely loves what he does for a living. He describes his broadcasting debut on RTE 1 as a uniquely exciting experience and the sweet shock of it brought a surge of adrenalin that you could never forget. "It was on a cold day shortly before Christmas in 1990, having just returned from honeymoon," he says, "I was planting a beech hedge in our new garden and enjoying the music being played on the radio by Ronan Collins, when, in his usual mischievous way he announced a new recording from an upstart from Cork. "Right away I recognized the opening strains of O' Holy Night, which I had just recorded in London, with Phil Coulter as producer. So with the broadcast of that very first single my recording career was officially baptised on national radio. "My first full album of recordings was called "Because", and it was again produced by Phil who guided my introduction to the world of recording studios with a very steady hand, and managed to bring a nice modern sound to many of the old favourites we chose to include. As we were finishing the session, Phil decided that we needed one more track, and immediately I suggested My Lagan Love, which we both knew well. "Phil sat at the piano, the sound engineer opened the microphone, the tapes rolled and we recorded the song in one take with no edits. To this day it I my own personal favourite recording. It is a lovely song and needless to say, it is among the finest in Ireland's musical traditions." Finbar is understandably proud of his Cork roots, with the Rebel Country never far from his thoughts when is away on tour. Coming from a farming background, he was born in Kinsale and raised in Ballinspittle, "just yards from the sea". He lives with his wife Angela and their two children Fergus, fourteen, and Ileana, twelve, in Farran, which he describes as being "about halfway between Macroom and Ballincollig". Angela comes from Farran. "It's funny really", he says, "While I was raised on a farm and now live on a farm, I always had a yearning early on to be a farmer, we are not really farming people as such. "I don't know too much about farming and all that goes with it, but when you grow up in a farming family, it's in your blood and it never leaves you. We don't have cattle, just hens and ducks and horses. Quite a number of my friends and relatives are farming people, and we live in a farming community, but that's as far as it goes I'm afraid." A devoted family man and the youngest of eight children, five boys and three girls. Finbar has a great sense of humour, laughs easily and is a real chatterbox, a factor that is always welcome in interviews such as this one. "Finbar can talk until the cows come home," said a colleague recently. " The problem is to get him to stop talking." It is also obvious that he is quite clearly unaffected by his considerable success at home and abroad. "Sure why should you want to change," he says sipping his tea as two lady fans wave to him from across the lounge. Finbar's musical range covers all genres, from Spanish rhythms to Irish folk, from romantic ballads to operatic arias and everything in between. His voice blends well with his two colleagues in the Irish Tenors. Anthony Kearns and the newest member Karl Scully, a replacement when John McDermott left the group early this year to do solo work. Ironically John left the group in February 2000 following the death of his mother, and Finbar came into the line-up. Two years later John re-joined, replacing Ronan Tynan who had departed to focus on a solo career. "We all get on very well. I am happy to say that Anthony Kearns and I have known each other for a long time so there is a kind of comfort thing that we get from that. We are really good friends outside of the music environment and that helps. Karl Scully made his debut with us on the recent TV series and he was with us on the US tour in the summer. Karl will be with us for all our concerts and TV appearances including our up coming US Tour and the Christmas TV Special. I think he will have a fantastic career. He's only twenty-six so it is all ahead of him." Finbar began his musical education in Cork at the tender age of five and studied piano and theory of music with Maura Hourithane, a local teacher whose dedication and love of music "left a permanent mark on my life". "I started piano with her when I was about five and the first piece I ever did was the Cuckoo Waltz, a lovely little tune. She was a lovely woman, very generous with her time.... "All eight children were encouraged to sing and play a musical instrument by our mother Julia, still alive and well at ninety-three. It was not unusual on a Sunday morning in our house to hear our parents singing Panis Angelicus. "Both of them were very good singers. My late father, Robert, had a lovely tenor voice. In those days everybody imitated John McCormick or whatever they heard on the radio. I also remember hearing a lot of Mario Lanza on the radio. My father was a great fan of Mario and had many of his records." "Back then it was the wish of every Irish mother to have a priest in the family and my mother was no different, so at sixteen I was put on a plane for Spain in the north west and the University of Palencia. "I studied there for two years even though I hadn't a word of Spanish. "As for the priesthood, however, it was a major culture shock. The months of loneliness and isolation while studying were starting to take their toll. In the first year I would have come home gladly if I had been allowed. "I remember contacting Bishop Lucey affeer about a month or two and saying that this was really not for me. He advised me to stay until Christmas, which was a few months away and if I still did not feel any different, he would let me come home. As it happened, by Christmas, I was full into it. "The I cam back to Maynooth Colege in Kildare, where I was ordained. I was just twenty-two at the time, and I believe I was the youngest priest in the world. In Maynooth I was put in charge of the liturgical music for the college and it meant I could keep up with the singing which was great." "As time went by, though I knew the priesthood wasn't the right thing for me. I left after a few years, simply because I found that my heart just wasn't in it. " You need to be fully convinced, believe me. I was still in the priest hood when my brother Hugh died from a brain tumour at just forty years of age and at that state I seriously began to think of leaving. " I was beginning to realize that life is not forever and you have to make a decision about your life and your happiness to do something you want to do. These things have a habit of focussing your mind fairly clearly. "I felt that if you were a priest, then you should be a real priest, and working in a parish. I was a secondary school teacher at the time and then there was the music, which was a big part of my life. "Yes, the priesthood is a very lonely life and I think you have to be really cut out for it. Also, at one time there was great respect for priests, but unfortunately with all the things that has happened within the Catholic Church in recent times, it's harder for them to gain the respect they used to have. "I'm definitely in favour of priests marrying. I definitely think they should be allowed. I feel that the single life is only for certain people and I also think that it would be great support for them if they were able to have their own families. "My father had passed on when I decided to leave the priesthood, but when I told my mother, all hell broke loose. She was very proud of me being a priest and suddenly it was going to be all over. "I tried to explain to her that when I became a priest, it was not something I had a choice in. Now I said I just couldn't do it anymore, and her pleas for me to change my mind bordered on a scene involving that great Irish dramatic actress, Siobhan McKenna. "The funny thing though, is that as time wore on and she saw how happy I was in the music business, she knew I had made the right decision, especially when she saw our first child in my arms. "Over the years she has been fully supportive of my career chance, when I brought her to one of my concerts in the Cork Opera House recently, she told me she had thoroughly enjoyed it. As we prepared to say our goodbyes, Finbar said "When I left the priesthood, I considered a few other things, including teaching, but I suppose it had to be the music, and I've absolutely no regrets even with all the long travelling and the touring." Thank you to Mr. Phil Murphy - Editor Of Monthy Special Editions Of Ireland's Own Magazine The Likes Of Finbar * FAVOURITE MOVIE: Chocolat which was set in a French village and starred Johnny Depp as a kind of Irish gypsy, I've always loved it." * ACTOR: "Gregory Peck. I met him once, and as nice a man as you could meet, with all his fame and great career." * ACTRESS: "Kathy Bates, with great performances in films like misery and others." * MUSIC: "I've always loved Spanish music. "There is a certain Irishness about a lot of it, and it comes from deep within," * Food: "Apples and plums, which I pick from my trees in the garden. I grow tomatoes too, which I love." * DRINK: Apple Juice. I don't drink alcohol." * HOBBIES: "I love gardening. Any chance I get, I'm out in the garden digging or planting. * TENORS: "Jose Carreras would be No. 1 of the modern generation. He's not everyone's cup of tea but in his heyday he had that great passion. Jussi Bjorling and our own Josef Locke would be favourites too." * SPORTS: "I played hurling as a student though I wasn't good enough to be on the Cork team! I like tennis and horse riding. I used to breed Connemara ponies for a while." * BIGGEST INFLUENCE: "My Father. who was a great fan of the likes of Mario Lanza, Bridie Gallagher and Josef Locke, and I grew up with those voices in the house." * GREATEST THRILL: "Getting a stand ovation in the Cork Opera House in, I think, 1990. This is the mecca for Cork people, and if your own people appreciate you, then that is the ultimate compliment." * HISTORICAL FIGURE: " The famous Irish chieftain Grace O'Malley, who was also known as Granuaile. She stood up to Queen Elizabeth the First in a period when it wasn't the thing to do."