I've been a babe magnet for quite a while now.

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.

You can’t hate people unless you love them.

There have been many happy days and many unhappy ones in my life, but the most important was the day I met my missus, who is sometimes estranged and sometimes not. She got me off smack - although that's not the main reason it's the happiest moment.

There is drinking in lots of the songs because there is drinking in life. Drinking stimulates the imagination.

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.

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