By The Newsroom

Copyright northernirelandworld

The runner-up who got £1,000 was another 18-year-old from Athlone Leo Nolan singing Knoxville Girl. Third prize, also of £1,000 went to Castleblayney’s Jack Keane, who sang Back to Castleblayney. The winner, Gareth Jones who only recently completed his ‘A’ levels, comes from a musical family and he also plays several instruments. Even though all his siblings play, and sing, he said he was “still absolutely shocked but delighted” to have won. “I’ve been singing Irish Country songs and playing music since I was a young child. Music has always been a part of life in our home. “My mum plays piano, my older sister is also an excellent piano player, my younger sister plays the silver flute, my brother plays guitar and I play guitar, silver flute, Irish whistle and harmonica as well as singing,” says Gareth. “It was my first music award and I hope that I may have made the late Big Tom proud by singing his hit and also singing some of his songs later in The Old Coach Inn in Castleblayney. “At present I’m doing a technical course and hope to become a plumber. But I will use some of the winnings from the song contest to go into a recording studio and make my first record,” he added. The runner-up, Leo Nolan from Athlone also impressed everyone with his singing and guitar playing and was a great crowd pleaser. So also was Co. Monaghan’s Jack Keane who finished third. He said that time spent as an emigrant made his thoughts resonate with the sentiments in Big Tom’s song about emigration Back to Castleblayney. The contest was held before a packed audience in the Community Centre in Oram, Castleblayney on Saturday night. Another event at The Back to Castleblayney Festival saw members of the victorious Monaghan National League winning football team from 1985 and three of the surviving members of Big Tom’s band The Mainliners, Henry McMahon, Ginger Morgan and Ronnie Duffy, as well as singer Margo O’Donnell, getting the freedom of the town. In his speech at the opening of the festival on Friday night local businessman Robert Irwin, of Irwin Tiles, a former manager of Big Tom, said that Castleblayney was rightly called ‘The Nashville of Ireland’ but it was much more than that. “Nashville has a population of 700,000 where millions of musicians come from all over America and the world to play. But Castleblayney has only a population of 7,000 and all our talent is home grown here and around Ireland” “It takes three things to make it in the music business, tradition, talent, hard work and perseverance, ‘Blayney has all that in spades. The past has handed the musical baton on to the present and to the future,” he concluded. The week-end celebrations concluded with a play about the life of Big Tom staged in Oram Community GAA Centre on Sunday afternoon.