SHAY HEALY - TACOS AND MUSSELS (BalconyTV)

Shay Healy performs 'Tacos and Mussels' for BalconyTV Dublin

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http://balconytv.com/dublin 9/10/2006

SHAY HEALY - TACOS AND MUSSELS

PRESENTED BY TOM MILLETT

Shay Healy was born in 1943 and has had a long and varied career in entertainment. After leaving school he spent two years working for the Irish Press newspaper, but in 1963 he moved to RTÉ where be became one of the Irish national broadcasters first cameramen. Shay Healy was right in the middle of the Irish folk revival of the 1960's as a songwriter, journalist and performer. In 1967 the performer took over when he left RTÉ and changed sides of the camera to present "Balladsheet" and he also became the folk correspondent for hugely popular "Spotlight" magazine. He also presented "Preab Sa Cheoil" for RTÉ radio and toured the country on the expanding folk circuit. In the early 1970's Shay Healy spent much of time time in the USA, where he worked as an entertainer as well as being the manager of a popular Irish bar and restaurant.

Shay Healy returned to Ireland in 1976 and revived his television career. He co-hosted the popular children's television show "Hullabaloo" alongside Marion Richardson, artist Pat Ingoldsby and popular Limerick comedians Tom and Pascal. However it was Healy's alter-ego "Famous Shamus" that is most widely remembered. Indeed Healy scored his first big Irish hit under that guise.

"Hullabaloo" didn't last long and Healy next found himself in the role of Associate Editor of "Starlight" magazine, the successor to "Spotlight". However when RTÉ 2 television began in 1978, Healy was brought in to do publicity for the new station. He was subsequently promoted to Acting Press and Information Executive and it was while doing this job that his song "What's Another Year" won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980. When he arrived back at Dublin Airport , he had to conduct a press conference for himself. "What's Another Year" has special significance for Shay Healy as it was written to commemorate his father, who had passed away the previous year.

Eurovision victory helped Shay Healy's music career and in the following years he recorded demos with the cream of Irish musicians, but while the music was well received, business wasn't his forte and in 1986, he returned to television on "Evening Extra" and followed that with a popular series "The Dublin Village", which has recently been repeated. In 1988 he became host of "Nighthawks", an odd-ball chat show set in a diner. Over four years, "Nighthawks" became a huge cult hit show on RTÉ 2. It was Shay Healy's famous interview with former government minister Sean Doherty that brought an end to the political career of Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey, and changed the Irish political landscape forever.

Healy wrote several books over the next few years which included children's books, fictional novels and memoirs of his life as a gigging musician. In the early '90s, Healy began making documentaries for RTÉ, including many memorable shows, like portraits of Roy Rogers "King of the Cowboys", Tammy Wynette "First Lady", "The Rocker" a biography of Phil Lynott, "The Real Fr.Ted - A Portrait of Dermot Morgan" and "Harbour Nights" an eight-part docu-soap, set in Courtown, Co. Wexford.

Shay Healy has continued his musical career writing songs which have been recorded by many of Ireland's biggest stars like Daniel O'Donnell, Maura O'Connell, The Fureys, Paddy Reilly and former Eurovision winners Linda Martin and Paul Harrington. In 2003 Shay Healy worked with John Colgan and Moya Doherty, who are most famous for the 1993 Eurovision interval act "Riverdance". Together they produced "The Wiremen" which had a successful in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in the summer of 2005.