Philomena Begley

Few singers in Irish country music have a career as long as that of Philomena Begley, the Northern Irish singer who grew up in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, and became known as Ireland's Queen of Country. She joined the Old Cross Céilí Band as a dare and stayed. Her career has since run for more than five decades, shaped by a sequence of records, duets and international tours.

The band became the Old Cross Bandshow and issued three records in Ireland in 1968 and 1969 without charting. After renaming itself The Country Flavour in 1970, it gave her first hit, "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow", which reached number seven in Ireland. Her 1975 version of Billie Jo Spears's "Blanket on the Ground" climbed to number four in Ireland and number one in the UK, outselling Spears's original at home. Her duets with Ray Lynam produced "My Elusive Dreams", a song later referenced by The Pogues in "A Pair of Brown Eyes". In 1978 Porter Wagoner invited her to sing at the Grand Ole Opry, and she has since performed at Carnegie Hall. In 2020 she became the first recipient of the ICMA Hall of Fame.