Joe Dolan’s brother and showband legend Ben reveals secret to long life as he turns 90

Singer and sax player Ben is now the last surviving member of a family of nine siblings from Mullingar, including the youngest, Ireland’s best-loved entertainer Joe Dolan.

Sprightly Ben, who is still packing in the crowds performing the live show made famous by Joe, laughs as he tells the Sunday World: “I’m not putting myself forward for sainthood yet, but clean living has a lot to do with getting to this age and being still able to perform on tour.

“I didn’t purposely look after myself, but I never smoked and I didn’t start taking a drink until I was nearly 60. I saw so many fellas drinking in bands over the years and it didn’t go well for them.

“One time I said to Joe, ‘All the fellas that have gone out of the business were on the drink.’ I was looking after the business end of our band, so I thought that if I didn’t stay sober we’d be out of business.

“Taking care of the finances in the band was the most important thing to me at the time. If you were flutured going to collect the money it would be very easy for a fella to pull the wool over your eyes.”

Before starting the band with Joe, who died on St Stephen’s Day in 2007, Ben had been working as a carpenter in Mullingar and he says he couldn’t afford to drink in those early days.

“I never drank when I was serving my time as a carpenter because I didn’t have the money,” he says.

“Back then I was paid five shillings a week — two half crowns. I gave one of them to my mother and I had to live on the other one. I’d go to the pictures twice a week at a shilling a time. And if you had a girlfriend you’d be paying for her as well.”

Full of fun and good humour, Ben, who celebrated his birthday in Spain last week while on promoter Paul Claffey’s music holiday with his wife Helen, says that his life in showbusiness has helped to keep him young at heart.

“That’s a lot to do with it, being in showbusiness, because over the years I was meeting people that were younger than me all the time,” he says.

“And I was always happy because I was doing what I loved, although I had the worry of the business side of it in the band. But I loved being in showbusiness and I still do, and more than that I’m delighted to be still doing it today at 90.

“It’s the same for our manager Seamus Casey, who is 92. Seamus and myself meet at 11am every day in our family bar in Mullingar to drink tea, talk showbusiness and sort out the problems of the world. It gets us out of bed every morning.

“We’ve just finished a tour of 24 shows this year and we had fantastic crowds. They were as good as the heyday in the showbands. We have shows coming down the line and a big tour lined up for next year as well. I love it.”

However, Ben reveals that he lost the desire to perform for a time after Joe’s shock death from a brain haemorrhage in 2007.

“For the first five or six years I really didn’t have the heart to go back at it,” he reveals.

“And I also thought that no one would want what I had to offer, which is a tribute to Joe. But whatever we’re doing as a family today in the shows people seem to like it. I suppose we’re their link with Joe and it’s Joe’s songs.

“The people we meet at the shows are absolutely beautiful.

“I was never in the spotlight until Joe died, but now I meet the people and I find them to be really warm. The first thing they same to me is, ‘Ah, Lord, poor Joe…’

“My sons and daughter, Ray, Adrian and Sandra, are with me on the road and are performers in the band. We all travel together in the same minibus that we had when Joe was alive. We bought it the year before he died. Ray still drives it and we have some of the band who worked with Joe.

“At 90, I’m very fortunate to have good health, but even more lucky to have my wife Helen in my life. She looks after me. So hopefully the show will go on for many more years.”