A shining light of the Irish charts in the seventies
The Irish top ten singles chart from this day 50 years ago recalls an Irish superstar with a chart record that leaves most in the shade.
Brendan Shine’s career has given him 40 chart singles in Ireland, including five number ones. He started recording and releasing songs and albums in the sixties, but achieved his greatest success through the seventies.
He first topped the charts in 1971 with “O’Brien Has No Place To Go” (which enjoyed a five-month chart run) before revisting the No.1 spot with “Where The 3 Counties Meet” in 1973, “Abbeyshrule” in 1974, “All My Roads Lead Back To You” in 1976 and - his most remembered and biggest hit - “Do You Want Your Oul Lobby Washed Down” in 1979.
“Abbeyshrule” is a gentle, nostalgic ballad reflecting on the simple joys of boyhood life in Abbeyshrule, a village in Co Longford. It was written by Patsy Farrell who also penned the 1973 chart-topper “Where The 3 Counties Meet”.
Athlone-born Shine, now aged 77 and still going strong, had a major comeback hit in Ireland as recently as 2007 when “Grandad” reached number one in the Irish Folk Chart and also made the Irish Top 30.
His 1980 top ten hit, “Catch Me If You Can”, is a fan favourite, named by TV presenter Dermot O’Leary as his number one song in a 2015 memoir “The Soundtrack To My Life”.
In an Irish Independent interview that year, Shine said: “For someone of his importance to say that a song I wrote so long ago meant that much to him is just incredible.”
“Abbeyshrule” spent three weeks on top of the Irish charts in late Summer, 1974, sandwiched between two other homegrown Irish number ones.
“If Ma Could See Me Now”, the song knocked off the top by “Abbeyshrule”, was the biggest hit for The Times, a Mullingar outfit originally formed by former members of Joe Dolan’s Drifters showband, led by brothers Tommy and Jimmy Swarbrigg.
“19 Men”, which replaced Abbeyshrule at number one, was written and recorded by Longford’s Dermot Hegarty and is among his biggest hits. Set to the air of “The Rising Of The Moon”, it told the story of an escape from Portlaoise prison by 19 members of the Provisional IRA. In an interview with Brian Corr, Hegarty recalled that the song reached number one “without anybody hearing it on the radio” and that “the best thing that ever happened” was a headline on page 3 of the Evening Herald proclaiming: “RTE bans Hegarty new single”.