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This Christmas The Irish Tenors are coming home after one of their most successful years yet. 

But how much exactly are they worth?



Donal O'Donaghue tries to get a word in edgeways with Ronan, Finbar and Anthony.



Listening to the Irish Tenors, I knew that I was in trouble. At times I felt like being caught 
among three school friends reunited after mid-term break: cross-cutting conversation, gales of 
laughter and merciless slagging.Watch your tux!" warns Finbar as Ronan wolfs into a sandwich. 
"I’m the youngest,"pipes up Anthony. And all three collapse with laughter as they recall the 
day Ronan nearly lost his leg crossing a street in Christchurch.



Some time earlier I had arrived at Luttrellstown Castle on the north-west fringes of Dublin: 
an imposing spread best known as the place where Becks and Posh staged their wedding reception. 
It is eerily quiet inside as a couple of people ghost through the high-ceilinged rooms. The Irish 
Tenors have already disembarked. Finbar Wright is in the library where he is chortling through a 
radio interview, while downstairs Ronan Tynan and Anthony Kearns are slipping into their tuxedos. 
As a trio they haven't been together since the previous month they played a corporate gig in the 
US, so when they get together - ahead of an afternoon of press and publicity -they're playing 
catch-up and catch out.



In the Games Room, Ronan twirls the mini-roulette wheel. "Put it on the black!" exhorts Finbar. 
Ah, says Tynan with a worldly-wise shrug: "'You never win at these things." And he recalls the 
time he played Monte Carlo where he was up €3,000, only to lose it all. His laugh echoes through 
the hallway. He is the ruddy-faced extrovert of the three: the one who jokily asks for bison 
sandwiches, calls Finbar 'Finny' and playfully chuffs both his companions when they slag him. 
"lake your Valium and calm down," says Wright and the trio collapse for the umpteenth time.



Tynan is a big man: a big talker with a big handshake and big ambition, unquestionably, he is the 
most flamboyant of the three, in both his manner and his wardrobe. His buttons and cuff-links are 
gold American Eagles (a gift from us President George Bush), on his lapel he is wearing an ornate 
piece of rose jewellery (a present from a woman) and he's sporting a World Series Ring that was 
given to him by The New 'York Yankees.



Sitting in the middle of the trio, Ronan acts as the conductor of conversation. Anthony starts an 
answer and Ronan finishes it. In fact Ronan finishes most things (including the sandwiches). In 
contrast, Finbar sits on the edge of the natter, observing and taking note. "Finbar listens a lot," 
says Ronan. "He assimilates it and then figures out where it is all going."



Finbar Wright, who flew up from his Cork home earlier that morning, is looking much changed from the 
last time we met. His cherubic features are more angular and he seems to have lost quite a bit of 
weight. And then there's Anthony K, in mood and manner the most casual of the three. Or as he humorously 
puts it: "I'm the youngest here, I just want to clarify that."



The trio talk about the ghosts of Christmas past and growing up in large-ish families: Anthony (six), 
Ronan (five) and Finbar (eight). As such, Christmas was a hectic, family affair in Counties Wexford, 
Killenny and Cork. "My mother used to put cherries into the 'curny cake'," says Finbar. "It was the 
only time in the year that she used to do that." Almond paste, says Ronan: whose conversation seems 
to spin around the twin pillars of food and drink. He rubs his belly. "Back then we had the electric 
in Kiltealy," says Anthony. "But one Christmas the power went out and we cooked everything in the local 
hall." Was there an explosion"? wonders Cork-born Finbar. Ronan throws his head back and bellows with 
laughter. Hahaha. I look at my list of questions and figure, what the hell!



For the Irish Tenors, Christmas is now one of the busiest times of the year. A few days after we met they 
were jetting off to the US to begin an extensive tour as well as promoting their Christmas album, We Three 
Kings. Then they will fly home on Christmas Eve with another concert in Belfast on December 27: that means 
just Christmas Day with their families. "The more work you put in, the more luck you have, " says Ronan. 
'And we've worked bloody hard."



As Anthony Keams puts it, they are a business: and each man has a specific role. Broadly speaking, Kearns 
is the treasurer; Tynan is the secretary and Wright is the president. Business was good in 2003. This year 
they have been the most successful Irish touring group in the United States outside of U2. And their album, 
which had yet to be released when. we spoke in mid November; was already No.5 in the Billboard chart. Next 
year they are planning two more albums, more tours and the likelihood that they'll be playing the Superbowl 
next year. The money is rolling in but how much exactly they will not say.



Later; during the photo-shoot they start discussing their motors -I'm sure I heard the M and B words : and 
Wright's sharp eye catches me taking notes. Let's put it this way. Anthony K lives in Florida but recently 
bought a bar in New York, Ronan T has a house in Manhattan and I've been to Finbar W's family home at Farran, 
west of Cork City. They recently bought a racehorse (The Irish Tenors) which will make its maiden race at 
Punchestown in January and they're obviously not short of a bob or two. "This year is the first time that 
we can safely say that we've cracked America in that we've been to all three territories," says Finbar. So 
do they reckon that they're there now? "No," says Anthony quickly. "We're not there yet. There's another gear 
we can change into."



Just like Westlife or the Monkees, the Irish Tenors are a manufactured combo: the brain-child of producers TV 
Matters and Radius Television who needed three tenors for a US 1V special in 1998. Wright was the late arrival: 
joining the other two in 2000 when John McDermott left for personal reasons. Ronan remembers the Corkman's 
debut. "I distinctly remember him coming in for rehearsal and I remember his reaction when he heard us singing 
together. He said: 'This combination of voices is really amazing'." Wright, whom I had interviewed prior to his 
Irish Tenors days, had been circumspect of the project. "Up to that point I didn't really appreciate what it 
was that was making this thing work: until I stood there in the room and heard it, " he says.



According to Tynan, the tenor voice is the voice with the biggest ego so on tour they live by a number of golden 
rules. "What's great about the three of us is that we all speak our mind and nothing festers," Tynan says. "If 
there's a problem we will sit down together and we will lay it out on the table." if they are apart they send 
emails. "And those emails can be loud," says Kearns with a knowing laugh.



All three retain their solo careers, but increasingly they are performing - and recording - as a trio. In a way 
that's where the money is. They seem unconcerned about such spin-off acts as The Three Irish Tenors, the Celtic 
Tenors and so on. Good luck to them they say: there's room for everybody: or at least for the Irish Tenors, who 
are heavily booked year-round. In July and August they toured the West and Mid West, playing two sell-out nights 
at the Hollywood Bowl, as well as dates in Idaho, Phoenix and Vancouver. "I remember Vancouver because we had the 
best cappuccino there that I ever had in my life, " says you-know-who. Otherwise, there are the lucrative 
corporate gigs with leading US companies prepared to fly the trio to wherever they are needed to perform on the 
circuit.



With such relentless touring the anecdotes are inevitable. The leg incident? That was Christchurch: in a story 
related by Finbar and Anthony and sound track (wheezing laughter) provided by Ronan. The big man (who is a double 
amputee) was in a hurry to get across the street and was midway across when one of his artificial legs gave way. 
'We were carrying him up the street between the two of us and the leg was hanging out sideways. People were giving 
us the strangest looks." Then there's the arcade in Detroit (leg again) and the beached whales at the swimming pool 
and the card games and the. ....whoa!



LuttrellstownCastle is quiet once again. The Irish Tenors have left the building and a certain joie de vivre -or 
plain Irish madness -has gone with them. Later that afternoon they will make a pit- stop appearance on Open House. 
Dressed in civvies the trio belt out their lines about being second to U2, scoring high on the Billboard chart and 
at the end of it all they sing a Christmas carol. it's like a dress rehearsal for what lies ahead: five weeks of 
touring, performing, publicity, best-ever cappuccino, loud emails and rare quiet moments. The three kings are back 
on the road, each competing for the crown. After one hour in their company it looks like a three-way tie.