Daniel Doyle, Irish folk singer, is born in Dublin on April 28, 1940. During the 1960s and 1970s, he is one of the top Irish singers, regularly featuring in the Irish charts and scoring three No.1 singles. He records twenty-five albums and is known for his chart-topping songs “Whiskey on a Sunday,” “Daisy a Day” and “The Rare Ould Times.”
After leaving school at the age of fourteen, Doyle starts doing odd jobs, including working as general factotum in Dublin’s Pike Theatre, where he begins to pick up, from the travelling players, songs from the Irish countryside.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Doyle is one of the top Irish singers, regularly featuring in the Irish charts and scoring three No.1 singles. His song “The Rare Auld Times” notably displaces ABBA‘s “Take a Chance on Me” after just one week at the top. The song is composed in the 1970s by Pete St. John for the Dublin City Ramblers and peaks on the Irish Music Charts for twelve weeks. In 1979, he is the first artist to record St. John’s song “The Fields of Athenry.” He is probably best known for his 1967 number one hit “Whiskey on a Sunday.” His other notable works are “A Daisy a Day” and “The Rare Auld Times.” The hit songs “Daisy A Day,” “Streets of London,” “Lizzie Lindsay” and “Whiskey on a Sunday” that are released in the 1960s make him popular.
In 1983, Doyle moves to the United States from Ireland.
Paul McGuinness, the founder of Principle Management Limited, a popular music act management company based in Dublin, is born on June 16, 1951, in Rinteln, Westphalia, Germany. He is the manager of the rock band U2 from 1978 to 2013.
McGuinness is born in a British military hospital at Rinteln where his father, Philip McGuinness, a native of Liverpool, is serving with the Royal Air Force. His mother, Sheila McGuinness (née Lyne), is a schoolteacher from County Kerry. There are three children in the family: Paul, Niall, and Katy.
McGuinness receives his early formal education in Ireland at the private Jesuit boarding school, Clongowes Wood College. From there he goes on to Trinity College Dublin, where he directs plays, edits the magazine T.C.D. Miscellany, and promotes gigs, but drops out before obtaining a degree.
Before becoming involved with U2, Guinness works as a film assistant director on productions such as John Boorman‘s Zardoz. For a time, he also manages folk-rock group Spud.
McGuinness first meets U2 at a Dublin gig on May 25, 1978, where they are supporting the Gamblers. Following this meeting, he becomes U2’s manager, having been introduced to the band by Bill Graham, a journalist with Hot Press magazine. His original agreement with the band is that the money is to be split equally five ways, though this is later changed.
McGuinness founds Principle Management Limited on March 29, 1984. He and Bill Whelan set up a music publishing company called McGuinness/Whelan Publishing in the late 1980s. Whelan later composes the music for the theatrical show Riverdance.
In 2002, McGuinness is presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Meteor Music Awards at the Point Theatre in Dublin and U2 wins the best Irish Band Award.
Noted for his business acumen, McGuinness is responsible for U2 3D concert films, U2-branded iPods, sponsorship from BlackBerry and the first-ever concert streamed live on YouTube.
McGuinness is regarded as the fifth member of U2, although in an interview with The Irish Press in 1985, when asked if he is the fifth member of U2, he replies, “The fifth member of U2 is in Adam (Clayton)‘s trousers.” He is also regarded as one of the most successful managers in the music business.
McGuinness steps down as manager of U2 after 34 years on November 13, 2013, with Madonna‘s manager, Guy Oseary, succeeding him in 2014 when he sells Principle Management Limited to Live Nation.
McGuinness is a founding partner of TV3 (Ireland) and is one of the owners of Ardmore Film Studios. He becomes a member of the Arts Council of Ireland on January 1, 1988, having been appointed by Charles Haughey. He serves until February 2000 when he resigns.
McGuinness has been an advocate on behalf of artists, record labels, and music publishers. On January 28, 2008, in a speech at the Midem music industry convention in Cannes, he specifically accuses companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook of building “multi-billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it.”
In 2015, McGuinness founds Primo Productions, a film and TV company. Primo produces three seasons of Riviera, a drama set in the South of France. He writes the “list of ingredients” for the show: “Rich people behaving badly in the sun, yachts, Maseratis, great clothes, beautiful women, art fraud, money laundering through the auction houses, Russians, English people, American, French. Murder, adultery.” Everyday life on the Côte d’Azur. His production partner is Kris Thykier of Archery Pictures. The show is originally commissioned by Anne Mensah of Sky Atlantic.
McGuinness marries Kathy Gilfillan in 1977. They meet while he is studying at Trinity. Gilfillan is director of The Lilliput Press. They have two children.
Bill Whelan, composer and musician, is born in Limerick, County Limerick, on May 22, 1950. He is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, Riverdance, is a seven-minute display of traditional Irish dancing that becomes a full-length stage production and spawns a worldwide craze for Irish dancing and Celtic music. It also wins him a Grammy. Riverdance is released as a single in the UK in 1994, credited to “Bill Whelan and Anúna featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.” It reaches number 9 and stays on the charts for 16 weeks. The album of the same title reaches number 31 in the album charts in 1995.
Whelan also composes a symphonic suite version of Riverdance, with its premiere performed by the Ulster Orchestra on BBC Radio 3 in August 2014.
As an arranger and composer, Whelan’s credits include:
The Seville Suite, which is inspired by the exploits of Aodh Rua Ó Dónaill from the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 until his arrival in Galicia to the welcome of The Spanish Earl of Caraçena. In addition to the orchestra, The Seville Suite includes Celtic music on uilleann pipes, accordion, bodhrán, fiddle as well as Galician harp, whistles and pipes.
The Spirit of Mayo, performed by an 85-piece orchestra in Dublin‘s National Concert Hall and featuring a powerful Celtic drum corps and a 200 strong choir and choral group Anúna.
Whelan’s Celtic/Orchestral release, The Connemara Suite, features the Irish Chamber Orchestra along with soloists Zoë Conway, Morgan Crowley, Colin Dunne (Dance Percussion) and Fionnuala Hunt.
Whelan is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, Riverdance, is a seven-minute display of traditional Irish dancing that becomes a full-length stage production and spawns a worldwide craze for Irish dancing and Celtic music and also wins him a Grammy Award. It is released as a single in the United Kingdom in 1994, credited to “Bill Whelan and Anúna featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.” It reaches number 9 and stays in the charts for 16 weeks. The album of the same title reaches number 31 in the album charts in 1995. He also composes a symphonic suite version of Riverdance, with its premiere performed by the Ulster Orchestra on BBC Radio 3 in August 2014.
Riverdance is rooted in a three-part suite of baroque-influenced traditional music called Timedance composed, recorded, and performed for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest, which is hosted by Ireland. At the time, Bill Whelan and Dónal Lunny compose the music, augmenting the Irish folk band Planxty with a rock rhythm section of electric bass and drums and a four-piece horn section. The piece is performed, with accompanying ballet dancers, during the interval of the contest, and later released as a Planxty single. Whelan has previously produced EastWind, an album by Planxty member Andy Irvine with Davy Spillane whose cross between Irish and Southeastern European folk music proves an influence on Riverdance. Thirteen years later, Bill Whelan is invited to do the intermission piece for another Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, and composes Riverdance. In the book The Humours of Planxty by Leagues O’Toole, Whelan says, “It was no mistake of mine to call it Riverdance because it connected absolutely to Timedance.”
The 1994 performance earns a standing ovation from the packed theatre of 3,000 people. As a result of this success, Riverdance is invited to perform at the prestigious Royal Variety Performance at Dominion Theatre, London, in the presence of Prince Charles on November 28, 1994.
An audio recording of Riverdance enters the Irish Singles Chart at number one on May 5, 1994, and remains there throughout the summer, eventually totalling a record eighteen weeks at #1. In response to the Rwandan genocide of May/June 1994, a video of the Eurovision interval performance is released by the Irish broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann under the title Riverdance for Rwanda with all proceeds going to the Rwanda Appeal Disasters Joint Appeal Committee.
The success of the Eurovision performance leads husband and wife production team John McColgan and Moya Doherty to consider how to develop the piece. They decide to produce and direct a stage show, expanding the Eurovision piece and Bill Whelan’s composition. In November 1994, tickets are sold in Dublin for the first full-length performance of Riverdance, which opens at the Point Theatre on February 9, 1995. The show runs for five weeks and is a sell out with over 120,000 tickets sold. It stars the original lead dancers from the Eurovision performance as well as many from the dance troupe featured in the Eurovision performance.
Riverdance continues to be performed all over the world, in a diminished format and in smaller venues. Current productions are geared towards smaller theatres, whereas past productions have been performed in large theatres and arenas. Sets have been simplified and some numbers contain fewer performers than in past productions.
seamus dubhghaill 