After ten years of gigging in bars around Cork, Pat, 24, has finally got the break he deserves through You’re a Star, in which he is one of the five remaining contestants in the competition.

Pat comes from a strong musical background with both his parents encouraging music in the home from a very early age. “I used to wait up and have a song ready for when my aunts and uncles who would come home after a night out,  as I knew there would be a sing song at some stage. There was always a great love for music in my household ”.

“I started learning the guitar at thirteen, however a tussle in one of my music classes left me with a broken guitar and I gave it up for a year”.

The departure from music didn’t last too long with the precocious teenager gaining his first gig at the tender age of fifteen. However, Pat  doesn’t have the fondest of memories of that gig, “I was fifteen at the time and got the gig through my uncle who is also a musician. It was in the Weigh House bar on Barrack Street which is now closed down. Unfortunately, the people there didn’t want to hear any music and people were shouting at me to shut up. However, all my family were there egging me on and they kept my spirits up in what wasn’t the most pleasant experience of my career!”

Pat went on to do a degree in Accounting in Cork Institute of Technology while continuing to play gigs in bars around the cork as well at college events, such as CIT Rag week. Accounting wasn’t for Pat though and he decided to drop out after a year.

“ I used to work in the campus radio station which was situated directly across from my lecture room where I was supposed to be most of the time. Much to the annoyance of my lecturer I would wave through the window at him as I passed by on my way to the station. Eventually he stopped trying to chase me”.

Pat has to thank Ray Foley from Today FM and his best friend Neil Shannon for getting him into You’re A Star.