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“Yeah, you tend to gather up quite a few of these things after six decades,” smiles Phil Coulter, the man whose name is emblazoned
“When I released my autobiography, Bruised, Never Broken, back in
“I’m still doing what I love 60 years after I first started out in Derry.
Phil Coulter TUES14NOV23
he last thing you’d expect to see when you go deep into the bowels of an industrial estate in Bray is a wall of gold discs.
Actually, scratch that, it’s three walls, and we’re talking 23 platinum discs, 39 gold and 52 silver, with 5 Ivor Novello Awards over by the window, alongside 2 Grand Prix Eurovision Awards and whatever-you’re-having-yourself.
Be. The. Jiggers.
“Yeah, you tend to gather up quite a few of these things after six decades,” smiles Phil Coulter, the man whose name is emblazoned 
across each award, “but I’ve always let it be known that facing me is that fourth wall, and it’s blank. You’ve got to stay hungry, to keep thriving to do better, in any business.
“Otherwise, what’s the point…?”
Indeed. Having first shown his knack for a well-crafted song back in the 1960s alongside Bill Martin with hits such as Eurovision faves Puppet On A String and Congratulations, it was his beloved Derry that inspired perhaps Coulter’s most famous song, The Town I Loved So Well, released in 1973 on The Dubliners’ Plain And Simple album. Coulter had moved into producing too at that point, working with not only Ronnie, Luke and the lads but Planxty and Joe Dolan whilst also writing hits for the likes of Cilla Black, The Bay City Rollers and some lad called Elvis Aaron Presley.
What a Greystones party that was…
Not sure where Derry’s finest found the energy, especially given that Phil had struck up a close friendship with Billy Connolly during the 1970s that’s still going strong. Oh, and then there’s the Celtic ambience chaser albums he released in the 1980s, Enya precursors Classic Tranquility and Sea Of Tranquility becoming monster hits around the world and putting Phil centre stage for the first time.
With Geraldine on The Late Late Show
Now happily ensconced in sunny Bray with his wife of 35 years (this month), Geraldine Brannigan – the two meeting when the latter represented Luxembourg with the former’s song, Toi, in the 1975 Eurovision – Coulter is as busy as ever.
Freedom of Derry OCT22
2019, a part of me did think, well, is that it?” says Coulter as we wrap up the interview. “And that just made me more determined to keep creating, to keep pushing, even more than before.