Bressie shows Oprah his one true love is Westmeath
Caitlin Connors
Despite all his success, Niall (Bressie) Breslin’s love of his home town Mullingar stays at the heart of all he does and continues to do.
Performing as an opener with the Polaris Quartet for the renowned Oprah Winfrey for her show at the 3Arena, Bressie could not do so without praising his creative team, who are all from Mullingar.
“It was pretty wild to be fair, a wild experience. Having Oprah Winfrey stand beside me is not something I ever thought would happen," Bressie told the Westmeath Examiner. "But I think what was really quite nice about it was that the entire creative team that pulled it off were all from Mullingar. I was more proud of that than anything else, to be honest,” he said.
“We have this need to always look further for things. What is London doing, what is America doing? What is going on in Dublin? But the reality is the best creative people I’ve ever worked with come from my home town.”
Andrea Cullen created the visual imagery that Breslin’s concerts have become known for, and Robyn Byrne was the dancer on stage. Both are from Mullingar, and Andrea and Bressie are old school friends.
The Westmeath connection to Oprah did not end there, and Oprah now has a piece of Westmeath to keep with her for the rest of her life: “Everybody was giving her gifts. People were giving her lovely jumpers and brands, and we said you know, we'll give her a piece of Westmeath heritage.
"We gave her a sod of turf.”
Shots of the lakes and the bogs are used visually to back up Bressie's concert performances: “For me, I've always had a bit of a love affair with the midlands and north Westmeath,” he said.
Not only that, Bressie described the awkward yet funny misunderstanding he had with Oprah when he was allowed to meet her: “So, it was fine until I actually met her. I was brought in to her dressing room to say hello to her and I was just lost; I was like wow.
“I said something about how my mam used to watch you [Oprah] growing up, and me and my sisters would be kicking the life out of each other. Because Americans take pretty much everything literally then she thought I was literally murdering my siblings.”
Breslin clarified for Oprah that no siblings were harmed during the watch time of her show.
In the course of his opening performance, Bressie paid tribute to another powerhouse, the late Dolly Parton by playing a rendition of 'I will always love you'.
Bressie has never hidden the love he has for Parton’s music and admitted he was “completely flattened by” her recent death.
They first played the rendition at Electric Picnic, but they felt they could not leave it off the setlist when opening for Oprah.
Bressie started his musical career with the Cathedral choristers, which makes his upcoming performance at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar a full circle moment.
His mother was a music teacher, but Bressie said “my kind of real music education came from the choristers - learning everything from harmony to counterpoint".
Although it is hard to top opening for Oprah, Bressie is now looking forward to playing alongside the choristers, as he returns to perform on Friday October 9.