Dolores Keane has opened up about overcoming her drinking problem, saying that alcohol "doesn't help anybody."
The Galway singer, who was a founding member of De Dannan and enjoyed huge success with the A Woman's Heart album, appeared on the final episode of the current season of The Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night.
Singer Dolores Keane tells @Tommedian how she joined her first band and the joy she experienced in singing accompanied for the first time 😍😍#TommyTiernanShow pic.twitter.com/vjsLDZOD4j
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) March 25, 2023
"I’ve had a lot of ups and downs during my life as a singer," she said. "A few major things, drink being one of them and I think, and I’m saying this to the audience now, it doesn’t help anyone.
"You think that it does, but it creeps up on you . . . like do you ever get a bad itch and it starts to move and you think, `ooh, there’s something wrong here’?
"That’s how it happened to me. The whole feeling of being an alcoholic, it really scared me, and I was at a stage where I thought I’m never going to beat this, I’m never going to beat this and it wasn’t until I met a very dear friend of mine and he spoke to me and within a matter of about half an hour, I knew that I didn’t need it anymore. It was as simple as that.
She added, "He just asked me the question - `do you want to go to the coffin early, is this how you want to be remembered, is this what your life has become because of this blasted drink?’ and I said, `no, no, it’s not so I gave it up’."
Speaking about her upbringing, Keane said, "There was always music in the house, always. I was never thought where the buttons were or where the strings were. It was just a way of life.
"I didn’t live with my parents. I left there at about three of four. My sister died of TB and all the rest of the family had to be farmed out to the cousins until the house was safe for living in again and I still miss it so much.
"I never went back except for when my Aunt Rita would bring us to Salthill for a day during the summer or we’d go visiting on a Sunday but other than that I didn’t have much of a rapport with the rest of my family for a long time."
Keane has a new song coming out in a few weeks called The Refuge and asked how her voice was, she said, "It’s good, it’s good but my arthritis is not that great. When I’m on stage I’m fine once I get into the swing of things."
Watch the latest episode of The Tommy Tiernan Show on The RTÉ Player.
