2.1K
That was way back in 1964, and little did the young Leo O’Kelly
With plans afoot to return to his beloved Greystones where, from The Woodlands Hotel to Dann’s, O’Kelly ruled Friday nights for many a year – thanks to his trademark trippy hippy shake – for now, you can catch Leo live every second Friday on Facebook here.

On the one road… SAT24FEB24
till trying to figure out what the frets might be for on his new guitar, the
14-year-old Leo O’Kelly was more than a little surprised when his mum came home from work one day and told him that he was in a band.
One of her co-workers, Michael Foley, led The Tropical Showband, and they needed a guitarist.
That was way back in 1964, and little did the young Leo O’Kelly
realise at the time, but this would be his life for the next 60 years. And counting.
“I just kind of did what I was told,” he smiles as we sat down to lunch at Café Grey this sunny Saturday afternoon. “My mum was more cunning than Colonel Tom Parker, and I realised much later on that she may have just needed the extra income. As opposed to thinking that her talented young son was destined to give his life over to music…”

Tropical Showband 1965 Back: John Payne, Leo O’Kelly, Hugh O’Kelly, Paddy Byrne. Front: Paschal Tomlinson, Michael Foley, Gregory Nolan.
Indeed, a life in music is something that the bould Mrs O’Kelly could never have imagined for her boy, and the outcome seems to have taken Leo by surprise too. Not long after his 1964 live debut though, he went from playing in showbands around his native Carlow to forming one of Europe’s most successful progressive folk outfits of the early 1970s, Tir na nÓg, alongside Newtown boy-done-good, Sonny Condell.

1st photo of Leo & Sonny, London 1970. Pic: Deirdre Mason.
till trying to figure out what the frets might be for on his new guitar, the
14-year-old Leo O’Kelly was more than a little surprised when his mum came home from work one day and told him that he was in a band.
realise at the time, but this would be his life for the next 60 years. And counting.

electricity, to these gigs…”
2 comments
Nice to see the photo used (and credited) again and in such a good piece of writing. Thank you!
Lovely iv Paul! Hope you let him know he and Garvan are much missed from their Friday night slot in Danns!