Organisation : Waterford County Museum
Article Title : O'Regan, Tadgh (1927-1995)
Page Title : Biography
Page Number : 1
Publication Date : 04 October 2010
Expiry Date : Never Expires
Category : MacConmara - O'Siochain
URL : https://www.waterfordmuseum.ie/exhibit/web?task=Display&art_id=244&pagenum=1&lang=en

Singer

Tadgh O'Regan was born in Abbeyside on 10 October 1927. His father Timothy who died when he was fourteen worked at the Old Railway Station in the town. He came from a family of four boys and a girl he was later to have a family of four girls and a boy.

He joined the Post Office in 1943, working initially as a postman in the Ring Gaeltacht area. He first came to attention for his singing when he performed at concerts and ceilis in Dungarvan area in his early twenties. He won an international contest in the Isle of Man in 1954 and went on to perform with many well-known ceili bands which toured Ireland and Britain in the late fifties and sixties. He was starting out as a singer when he came to Athlone in 1956. There he met local girl Francis Rigney and they married in 1957. He worked for eighteen months in Ballina and Roscommon before returning to Athlone as a Post Office clerk in 1962.

His solo LP recordings include 'A Little Bit of Ireland", 'A Visit to Ireland in Song'and 'Dungarvan My Hometown' written by Mai O'Higgins. His first of many broadcasts on Radio Eireann was in 1959, and he was frequently heard over the years on programmes such as Ceili House and Ceolta Tire. In 1966 he toured Germany on an Irish Concert tour. In 1974 he undertook a month long tour of the United States and Canada and in 1988 he toured France with Ceoltas.

Over the years, through concerts, broadcasts, recordings and foreign tours he became very well known. Having made Dungarvan famous in song he was in turn honoured by his hometown, when the Urban District Council gave him a civic reception in 1984.
In 1988 he took early retirement from the Post Office, and developed a series of lecture-recitals, which he gave all over Ireland. He died peacefully albeit suddenly at home on 29 June 1995, aged 67 years.


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