International singer with Offaly roots secures Irish passport

THE international singing sensation Mick Hucknall is celebrating this week after securing an Irish passport. The Simply Red singer who has Offaly roots on both sides of his family posted a picture of the passport on the band’s Twitter account with the words FREEDOM above it. 

His mother Maureen Taylor, whose father is from Offaly, abandoned the family when he was just three. Hucknall has spoken publicly about the effect her leaving had on him growing up. It eventually inspired him to write ‘Holding Back the Years’ Which was a massive hit.

FREEDOM! ❤️MH pic.twitter.com/aZBXMbq1BV

— Simply Red (@SimplyRedHQ) April 13, 2022

His father Reginald, a barber by profession, raised Hucknall alone. He pays tribute to his father who died some years ago in the song ‘Dad’. It opens with the lines: ''She left, you stayed. It really wasn’t simple at all. You cried, I smiled, I really wasn’t lonely at all. No one really knows what you gave me. What you made, what you gave.''

When he became famous, his mother who was by then living in Dallas, Texas contacted him out of the blue and told him she was dying of cancer. Hucknall set aside the past to be by her side only to find she had lied.

Mick Hucknall has sold 50 million albums worldwide.