Breaking: Limerick music ‘legend’ Tommy Drennan has died

One of the legends of Limerick’s music and showband era Tommy Drennan has passed away.

A well-known name on the showband circuit in the 1960’s and 70’s, Tommy Drennan was a member of The Monarchs showband – one of the biggest names in Ireland at the time.

He was born and reared in Janesboro and attended the Presentation Convent before moving to CBS in Sexton Street.

Tommy’s early days are fondly remembered through a famous recording of ‘O Holy Night’ which Tommy recorded as a boy soprano with the Redemptorist choir. He recorded that at Mount St Alphonsus Church 

Remembering that recording Tommy said: “Every Christmas there was a recital given by the choir from the altar. Fr John Torney was the choir master and he used to make tapes on an old Grundig tape recorder. He made quite a lot of recordings and he gave me a tape of myself singing O Holy Night. I took it home and put it into an old suitcase where it remained for years.”

He eventually re-recorded the song as an adult – publishing a version as a duet with his young self!

Along with names like Brendan Bowyer and Dickie Rock,  Tommy Drennan was considered an Irish ‘celebrity’.

In 1963 he was asked to join The Freshmen, replacing Derek Deane who returned to school for a time. After a year, Tommy left the band and returned to Limerick where he was invited to join the recently formed Monarchs by founder Jim Connolly.

For the next eight years the band was a major draw in the ballrooms. In 1972, Tommy formed his own band, Top League and had several hits.

Singer Sean O’Dowd worked with Tommy. Remembering his old friend he described him as a ‘fantasic person’.

“He was very well read and he would surprise you with his knowledge on a lot of things. I joined Tommy, when I came to Limerick in 1967, there were two big bands in Limerick – the Monarchs and Donie Collins. So when I left Donie Collins in 1970, I did a stint in the Greenhills for a while doing cabaret there and then Tommy decided he was leaving the Monarchs and forming his own band”, Sean told Live 95 News.

“So that was 1972. His manager, Paddy O’Connor, came to me and asked me, he said Tommy was forming a new band and he would like kind of a rock and roll pop singer. He was a big ballad singer – he was just a beautiful tenor voice and a magnificent singer”.

“I stood for three years on the stage every December with Tommy Drennan. We worked possibly 20 nights of the 30 or 31 nights or whatever it was in December.  And every night the hair stood on the back of my neck when he sang Oh Holy Night. Every night, I never got used to the impact and it just tore my heart out. He was magnificent. You know, people don’t realize how good he was. When we’d go to rehearsal and Tommy would sing without a microphone. My God. Then you’d hear Tommy Drennan. Then you’d hear him doing his warm-ups or his scales or his high notes or his low notes. His range was incredible and he could handle any kind of a song. He was he. he wouldn’t touch pop rock and roll stuff like it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, but he knew that it wasn’t his forte”.

In later years Tommy continued to work as a professional singer on the cabaret and corporate scene. He also became an educator – working with Expressive Arts Theatre School alongside May O’Halloran and Pearl Kiely introducing the world of performance to hundreds of young Limerick children.