Country music star Shawn Cuddy's original plan was to become a nurse, not a musician.
But now the singer is celebrating 35 years on the road after carving out as successful career on stage.
He took a big risk to go into music full-time after seeing Daniel O'Donnell perform, much to the surprise of his parents.
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Shawn told RSVP Country: "I’ve been in the music business for 35 years professionally and before that I went around with my sisters for seven or eight years. I’ve been at it a long time!"
For Shawn, it feels amazing to make a career out of something he loves.
The Laois native said: "I’ve always loved music, especially country and Irish music. That was the music we grew up listening to and mammy and daddy would have gone to the dances to see Big Tom, Margo and Larry Cunningham.
"I always sang in local concerts back home in Laois. If you said to me back then that I was going to make a career out of singing, everyone would have said you were mad.
"When I finished school and did my exams my original plan was to become a nurse, not a musician."
Was that his first job? "No, my first job was reading metres for the ESB and then I was lucky enough to get a job with the Midlands Health Board working in a hospice in Mountmellick.
"I worked under the nuns for two years while still gigging in pubs and doing a one-man show. I was working all the time. My main ambition was to do nursing, but I realised that men couldn’t train in Ireland to be nurses back then, that will show you how naive we were. You had to go to England, but how could I leave? So I stayed working away."
Everything changed for Shawn after he attended a Daniel O'Donnell gig in Offaly.
He recalled: "In 1988, I was playing at a cabaret night in Offaly and I heard that there was this new singer performing in Tullamore and his name was Daniel O’Donnell. I packed up my gear and went to see him perform.
"I spoke to him after his show and he told me to give it a lash and go out and record an album. The rest is history and I’ve been working ever since!
"Aren’t we very lucky to do what we do and have the talent to do it? We love it and get paid for doing it at the same time. I couldn’t do anything else."
During the pandemic, Shawn went back to nursing and caring.
He said: "I worked in an Alzheimer’s unit and I really enjoyed it. It was lovely to go back and give my time. I got great satisfaction from that.
"All my life I worked, so I couldn’t just take a government payment, I had to get out and work. I did three 12-hour shifts a week and it was hard.
"I never thought I would have been sitting on the frontline, but I was there and I witnessed the pandemic and the effect it had on the families who lost their loved ones."
Shawn's parents always wanted him have that Plan B.
He said: "To be quite honest with you, mammy and daddy were shocked when I said I was going to get into music full-time. I remember when I left the hospital in Mountmellick I was one of the youngest attendants with the health board at the time.
"I was only 19 with a full-time pensionable job. When I handed in my notice to the matron, she looked at me with a frost face and said, ‘What do your parents think of you leaving a pensionable job to sing in a pub?’ [laughs]
It was big a risk at the time for Shawn and his family.
He said: "I had no money saved up, I was earning £64 a week. It was good money at the time, but getting more money was hard.
"I remember getting insurance on my first car and there was no such thing as direct debit. I got a personal loan from the bank for £5,000 so I could record my music.
"My family had to guarantee the loan because the bank wouldn’t give me the money. I hired musicians and the best people in music and I laid down my vocals in Harold’s Cross in Dublin.
"I knew that if I was going to succeed I needed to arrive at the record company with a good product."
Read the full interview with Shawn Cuddy and see all of the fabulous pictures in this issue of RSVP Country - on shelves now
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