In an exclusive extract from his memoir, the singer looks back
“Anything strange or startling?” That’s how my da, Bob, opens our conversations. We’d meet in our “local” pub in Dalkey, Dublin. Finnegan’s is its own country with its own laws and customs. Time is said to change shape on crossing its door. I have experienced that. It’s a constitutional monarchy with Dan Finnegan the head of state, his sons effectively running the government with his eldest, Donal, the prime minister. Donal is 6ft 4in but, depending on the hour and the state of the state, can appear 6ft 7in. I would not want to mess with Donal Finnegan.
Dan Finnegan loved my da. They shared a love of opera and stage musicals, and Dan recognised when another prince was present, one who could actually sing. On the occasion when my father silenced the place by singing The Way We Were followed by The Black Hills of Dakota, Dan looked over at me with something like pity, and I imagined him speaking under his breath, “Think how far you’d have come if only you had your father’s voice.”
