Dermot O'Brien (23 October 1932 – 22 May 2007) was an Irish céilí and

showband The Irish showband () was a dance band format popular in Ireland from the 1950s to the 1980s, with its peak in the 1960s. These bands typically had seven to ten members, including a rhythm section and a brass section with various combinations o ...

musician and singer, as well as a

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

er who played as a centre-forward at senior level for the

Louth Louth may refer to: Australia *Hundred of Louth, a cadastral unit in South Australia * Louth, New South Wales, a town * Louth Bay, a bay in South Australia ** Louth Bay, South Australia, a town and locality Canada * Louth, Ontario Ireland * Cou ...

senior football team.

Gaelic football career

O'Brien made his first appearance for the Louth team during the 1952 championship and was a regular member of the starting fifteen until a broke finger ended his career in 1960. During that time he has won one

All-Ireland All-Ireland (sometimes All-Island) is a term used to describe organisations and events whose interests extend over the entire island of Ireland, as opposed to the separate jurisdictions of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. "All-Irelan ...

winners' medal and two

Leinster Leinster ( ; or ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland. The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century ...

winners' medals. In 1957 O'Brien captained the team to the All-Ireland title. At club level O'Brien was a three-time county club championship medalist with St Mary's.

Musical career

A long-time amateur musician, in 1962 O'Brien became a professional musician when his band the Clubmen went professional; O'Brien played the

piano accordion A piano accordion is an accordion equipped with a right-hand keyboard similar to a piano or organ. Its acoustic mechanism is more that of an organ than a piano, as they are both aerophones, but the term "piano accordion"—coined by Guido Deir ...

for the band rather than the more typical Irish button accordion. Dermot O'Brien and the Clubmen had considerable musical success, with their hit single " The Merry Ploughboy" (a cover of a Jeremiah Lynch/

Dominic Behan Dominic Behan ( ; ; 22 October 1928 – 3 August 1989) was an Irish writer, songwriter and singer from Dublin who wrote in Irish and English. He was a socialist and an Irish republican. Born into the literary Behan family, he was one of the mo ...

song about joining the

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various Resistance movement, resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperiali ...

) reaching the top of the

Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is the Republic of Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and compiled on their behalf by the Official Charts Company. Chart rankings are ...

in only seven days and holding that position for six weeks in late 1966. The single was rushed to market to compete with a Top 100-ranking cover of the same song by the Abbey Tavern Singers. In the late 1960s, O'Brien began his own

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

show called ''The Styles of O'Brien''. In 2018, Brown University students started a Dermot O'Brien appreciation club.

Personal life

In 1962, Dermot married Rosemarie Walshe of Ballinacurra, Limerick City. Rosemarie died in New York in 2005.

References

External links

Dermot O'Brien and his Clubmen (1962–1972)
at IrishShowbands.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, Dermot 1933 births 2007 deaths All-Ireland–winning captains (football) Irish male accordionists Louth inter-county Gaelic footballers Musicians from County Louth People from Ardee RTÉ people St Mary's (Louth) Gaelic footballers 20th-century Irish accordionists 20th-century Irish male musicians