#Ollie the twitterrific bird professional

The time came when he was offered a chance to go professional with Heather Kaye and the Pines, a Longford-based combo, who asked him to go on a tour of Scotland with them. 'I just don't know but as a youngster it was in my mind to play guitar.' He took up the bass and learning about it from the likes of renowned musician Jimmy Smith, father of guitarist Jimmy Smith (who was once asked to join Thin Lizzy) and Gloria Smith.Īs well as working in a Navan-based furniture factory making children's cots Ollie gigged with local bands such as Woodpeckers, the Mexicales and the Kells-based Jetliners, learning his second trade. Ollie is not sure where the music in his soul originated. So we pushed the car off the road and continued on our way a little shook up. 'The first vehicle to come along was the van with Brendan Grace's band and lucky enough our van was coming after that. I swerved, hit a stone wall, a couple of the tyres blew out and we ended up half-way across the road. It turned out the truck was parked, it was on the far side of the road. I suddenly swerved to the right to go past it. I woke up and saw this lorry in front of me. 'He asked me if I would drive, he had his girlfriend with him and he was sitting with her in the back. The lead guitar in the band at the time was Larry Gallagher a Donegal man who was with The Firehouse for a time. 'Travelling at night the roads wouldn't be as busy as they are now, there was no motorways of course but one night we were after playing in Galway, we had played for 21 nights in a row, and we were coming from Salthill. He recalls when with the Firehouse he did a show in the west and real tragedy was only narrowly avoided. I had more good days than I had bad days.'Īs well as draughty marquees, crumbling old parish halls there were other real dangers to contend with. 'With the travelling, the rest of it, it was a rough life but don't get me wrong, it was very enjoyable too and if you are into music it can be a great life in many ways. Fair play, she was great, she understood the business, what was involved. I might then get up at three or four and head off to another gig before Kathleen would be home. I would be coming home going in the door at seven in the morning and Kathleen would be going out the door on her way to Marsh's clothes factory in Navan where she worked. 'People would see you up on a stage for two hours and they might think: 'Oh you have a great life.' But after the show you would get in a van maybe have to travel five or six hours to get home. As well as the adulation, the applause, the glitzy suits, there was the long, monotonous trips in smoke-filled vans on bad roads the length and breath of Ireland. Outwardly it looked a glamourous world to be part of, but there was another side too.

#Ollie the twitterrific bird tv

About how he and The Firehouse appeared on TV shows, mixed and mingled with some of the biggest names in showbusiness.

'You began to see the crowds dwindle in dancehalls and carnivals, although it didn't happen very fast, it was a gradual thing,' recalled Ollie when he called into the Meath Chronicle office to talk about his life and times. The discos arrived and suddenly instead of a band, promotors and venue owners just needed to book a DJ and his (invariably it was a man) records and flashing lights. Then, gradually, inexorably, it all started to change. Ollie - who grew up in Alexanderaide, outside Navan and still lives there with his wife Kathleen - remembers the time when over 300 showbands criss-crossed Ireland filling parish halls, marquees all sorts of ballrooms of romances in towns and villages. That was one of the best halls around, we played there twice a year, every year, on St Patrick's night and St Stephen's night, two of the busiest nights of the year, packed out.' 'At that time you'd get 2,000 people into Beechmount (a venue in Navan, now demolished). There were eight bars in the place, bouncers from Kerry all over the place, a lovely spot, thousands of people there. Norman Wisdom was there the first week, we were in it the second. 'I remember we played the National in Kilburn, we were there in only its second week. A few bands lingered longer but the 1950s, '60s and '70s belonged to the showbands - and Ollie Bird was there, right in the middle of it all making a living as a bass player with outfits such The Firehouse, a showband fronted by Skryneman Jim Tobin. The era extended from the 1950s, if not a little before, right up to the 1980s. It was a golden age for singers and musicians a time of plenty - at least when it came to finding work.