Brendan shine same as 50 years ago

AS he celebrates 50 years in showbusiness with a nationwide concert tour, Brendan Shine is adamant that his accordion playing and his singing are the same as when he started out in a ceilí band in Roscommon.
“I’m doing nothing different now than when I started out. Back then in the 1960s everybody was playing guitars because it was the era of The Beatles and of the showband. I wasn’t a cool young fella’ playing the accordion and singing the ballads, but that was my music and I stuck with it and here I am still at it,” says the farmer from Taughmaconnell near Ballinasloe.