Kildare's Michael English for country music TV show

Kildare singer Michael English is coming back to Ireland's biggest Country Music show, TG4's Glór Tíre.

Michael will appear on the new season of the long-running show on Tuesday 3rd February at 9.30pm, mentoring two of this year’s contestants: Offaly’s Megan O’Hara and Co Derry’s Marty Breslin.

“This will be my third time as a mentor,” says the Castledermot native. “It's a huge platform for new singers and for these young people to get started in the business. I'm very much delighted to be associated with Glór Tíre.”

As well as performing his own set on the show, Michael’s many fans can also look forward to him duetting with Megan on Tom Paxton’s ‘The Last Thing On My Mind’, and on his own composition, ‘Friday At The Dance’ with Marty, which the young Derryman requested they perform together.

“I wrote it for the jiver,” says Michael, before quoting the lyrics. “‘I've been dancing all my life as long as I remember/My mom would teach us one by one/to learn to dance together.’ I used to go to the dances with my mom and dad, and she would teach us how to jive. ‘Friday night at the stroke of nine/we'd all head for the dance.’ Music and dancing motivated us. That's why I wrote it.”

Michael outlines what drew him to working with Megan and Marty: “It was their voices. You have to be able to sing. The music has to be in you. There's also the likability factor and the down-to-earth factor -qualities some of the greats have, and I saw that in Marty and Megan. They're people who deserve to get a leg up and get started.”

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For Michael, the chance to mentor on Glór Tíre is a way of paying back the kindness shown to him at the start of his own career in the late 1990s.

“When I started, people like Declan Nerney, Brian Coll, Big Tom, and Henry McMahon, band leader with The Mainliners, were very good to me,” he says. “They gave me a start. I look at mentoring as doing the same, giving a little bit back to people who might find it tough to get started in the business.

“I think it's hugely important to help people get into the business because of the amount of young people coming to the shows, the dances, or young people singing, the musicians in the band, the crew - there's young people all throughout the business now. That's because of shows like Glór Tíre. Seeing young people up on the stage, starting out, gives great hope and encouragement to other young people.”

Glór Tíre is presented by Aoife Ní Thuairisg and produced by Galway-based company, Gael Media. Jó Ní Chéide and Caitriona Ní Shuilleabháin return as resident judges. The guest judge on 3rd February will be singer and RSVP Country editor, Trudi Lalor.

For more information see www.tg4.ie and follow @glortire on social media for all of the latest news and
updates.