Biography

Born in Wexford town, (Ireland) where he lived until he was twelve, Con spent his teens in the north Dublin suburb of Coolock. It was in Dublin's fair city where he made his musical debut, as lead vocalist in a Pink Floyd covers band at a student's Rag Week party in Trinity College. He later moved on to a blues orientated Free/Bad Company/Led Zeppelin covers band, Badge.

Next up were a couple of Dublin rock bands; Helms Deep which was largely a covers band and Paris, where he contributed original material and also collaborated on tunes with other band members.

During the mid-eighties he ran gigs in well-known Dublin watering holes such as The Suffolk Inn, Lincoln's Inn, The Meeting Place and The Baggott inn - where he shared the bill with some of Ireland's best guitarists and songwriters - including Barry Moore (now Luka Bloom), Jimmy McCarthy, Mick Hanley, Declan Synnott and Kieran Halpin.

His musical influences broadened as he gigged with experimental, avant-garde bands such as Envy and Woolly Glasses. It was at an Envy gig in Dublin that Con was first introduced to the world as 'The Acoustic Mercenary' by manic impresario and Woolly Glasses member, Tommy (I will not go quietly) Farrell. A common denominator in Helm 's Deep, Paris and Envy was Mick Joyce, a fellow songwriter and football friend from St David's Secondary School, Artane, and now one of Ireland's foremost contemporary songwriters: check out www.joycemusic.com.

As part of his apprenticeship, Con plied his trade as a solo musician throughout Dublin and County Wicklow, slipping original material into covers sets whenever he sussed the audience was open enough to listen - or too pissed to notice. He has however, sworn an oath never to play The Eagles 'Lyin' Eyes' again.

In the late eighties he moved to the United Kingdom, and after a brief sojourn in London, headed into the Suffolk countryside - 'Constable country' - where he now lives and works.

Con's music is best described as contemporary acoustic-rock, and bears comparison with David Gray, REM, the acoustic Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Richard Ashcroft and the Levellers. As well as being an accomplished guitarist, his songs are second to none in expressing the human condition, and reach the hearts other songs cannot reach. He gets a lot of his inspiration on the road, and has travelled extensively in India, Peru, Europe, Turkey, Tanzania (climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 1999), Zanzibar and throughout the UK and Ireland.

As a schoolboy, Con had trials with Arsenal F.C. and was capped four times for the Republic of Ireland as a youth international, numbering David O'Leary and Frank Stapleton among his peers. Unfortunately, serious injury brought a promising football (soccer) career to an end, but he still finds time to turn out for a weekly 5-a-side.