Primary and secondary for me was Colaiste Mhuire in Parnell Square. I started there in 1973 and at that stage it was a boys-only private school. It was very small; there were about seven in my class in second class and that went up to about 14 by sixth class. Right through primary I had a very small class and wonderful teachers.

One lady that stood out - she was the only lady in the primary school - was Mrs Keogh. Through to the time that I left when I was 18 in sixth year, when you might not care about the other teachers catching you up to something, Mrs Keogh was formidable.

But she was a fantastic teacher, very much into arts for boys, which was sort of unusual. I think that's changed now, but even when I was in secondary school there would be very mixed views about a boy going into music. Even some of the Christian Brothers who ran the school would have thought it a nice thing for a girl to do, but not particularly macho.

I think the notion was that I should be out playing football, but I was useless at it. I remember I got a note off my mum to get off football because I had a piano exam and it didn't go down well at all.

Having said that, I remember when I was doing music for my Leaving Cert I wanted to do singing as my chosen instrument and the Department wouldn't hear of it.

Since then they've changed their minds, but apparently I was the first person to be allowed do it and that was because Brother McGrath, who was the principal at that stage, got on the phone and hounded them until they eventually gave in. But for him it wouldn't have happened - and then it would have been very difficult to do music in university, not having done it for Leaving Cert.

Music for the Leaving would have still remained an impossibility were it not for the dedication of the music teacher, Orla Brioscu. There were only three boys who wanted to do music for the Leaving Cert, too small to have a class, and so Orla Brioscu took us in her own time, showing diligence and care well beyond the call of duty.

Another teacher back in third class stands out, Brother O'Riordan. He was a well-known traditional singer himself, often singing in the Feiseanna. He was into his songs, usually republican ones though.

He got the conductor from the Pro-Cathedral, Palestrina Choir, to come and hear some of the boys singing because he thought there were a few voices in the class. I remember the conductor stood two of us up; this was in third class so we were about eight or nine. He said we should definitely go down and join the choir. Of course we didn't. The other guy was Thomas O Branagain, now a presenter on TG4.

I didn't join the choir until I was aged about 13. I was a very late starter when it came to actually joining. I knew I could sing, but I never took it very seriously. By then, I had been listening to a lot of classical music and liked it. Eventually I was dragged down to the Pro-Cathedral by my mum and I stayed on until I was about 20.

I was very lucky in that my voice didn't really break, it just went down gradually, so I sang boy soprano, then alto then tenor; it was a gentle sort of process.

I was a nice, quiet and reasonably shy kid when I was younger. That changed once I started doing the music and I got a bit of confidence, there was definitely a bit of "divilment" there all right.

There was a gang of us suspended at one time, for singing a very obvious rude version of An Poc Ar Buille. I won't say what our version was but it ended with "kill ya".

Then we had a fashion show and there were some chalk mannequins left behind. One of them ended up committing suicide in a school uniform by seemingly jumping off the roof. It was specially staged for when some teachers were walking up Parnell Square on their lunch. There were a few things like that, nothing too serious.

Well, nothing I'll admit to anyway.

In conversation with Olivia Kelly