Bridie Gallagher

Foreword by Daniel O'Donnell Known as 'the Girl from Donegal', Bridie Gallagher was Ireland's first truly international pop star. Over a fifty-year career she sang at sell-out concerts from small halls across Ireland to leading venues such as the London Palladium, Royal Albert Hall, the Lincoln Centre in New York and the Sydney Opera House. She brought glamour to show business in Ireland, and gave new life to forgotten Irish ballads. Her rise to fame began in the mid-1950s and was marked by enormous crowds wherever she appeared, as she won the hearts of legions of fans loyal ever since. But as well as phenomenal success, her life was marked by tragedy and loss. This biography by her son, Jim Livingstone, draws upon Bridie's own handwritten memoir, interviews with friends, fans and colleagues, and Jim's own personal insights, having worked closely with her as manager and musical director for twenty-five years. This is the story of a young, beautiful and talented girl from humble beginnings in Donegal who established a career in show business that was to endure for half a century.

Jim Livingstone is the only surviving son of Bridie Gallagher. A qualified psychologist, after a career in the NI civil service, he retired in 2012. From 1974 he was his mother's business manager and, for a period, musical director until she retired in 2000. He toured with her in Ireland, Britain and North America and, more than anyone else, knew and understood the woman who won the hearts of millions of Irish people around the world during a career of fifty years.