My mother was a champion Irish dancer and singer and most of my family were musical, particularly in Irish dancing. Music is all about spewing out your emotions. A mixture of a good tune and a good beat and everyone playing their guts out and something that grabs people's attention.

I play Irish popular music, yeah? Calling it folk is like putting it in a box. It's a living tradition, you know?

I'm not so much a rock star, d'ya know what I mean? I play Irish music. There's really no age when you stop playing Irish music. Even if I retired from playing onstage, I'd still be singing in pubs.

I hate the bloody highways. I hate hamburgers, I hate Greyhound buses. I'd have liked to have been in America during the Jazz Age, or the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The only politician anybody ever believed was Kennedy, anyway. Kennedy, Martin Luther King - civil rights always turns out in bloody war. Where's his dream now? When is a change going to come - as Sam Cooke said - for blacks in America? Anyone who does tell the truth gets a bullet in the head, y'know what I mean?

My dad has no control over who works with me. Me, me and me alone has to take responsibility for anything.

All I can do is go by the words of Christ, who was the only talker we had, for f - 's sake. Buddha didn't speak. The Holy Ghost didn't speak. But I think it all boils down to the same thing - it's all about unity, love, compassion.