A whole social scene opened up for me as young teenager and soon I found a group of young people learning and playing traditional Irish music in my home Co.Waterford, most had a few years head start on me so I heard some really talented young players at sessions and ceili's. I had to catch up so that drove me to learn lots of tunes and technique on the box. The Clare accordion maestro 'Bobby Gardiner' was also starting to teach all over Co.Waterford at this time so I decided to further my accordion journey and get classes from him. Every Saturday morning at the back of Kent's pub in Kilmacthomas which only opened for these classes. There were four of us in the 10-11am class, Ismay Crowley, POB O'Brien, myself and my brother Stephen. Our Mother used to bring us there and wait for hours in the car, we were so lucky to have huge support at home! John Hughes used to run the branch of Comhaltas in that area and he became a great friend, he played bodhran and sang and knew all the sessions and characters in this part of Co.Waterford. John used to organise regular sessions and they would hold raffles each night with all funds going to help keep the music classes and branch going. We got to meet pretty much all the old and young musicians in the area so these gatherings were amazing experiences for us. I was probably in all the great countryside pubs and halls around at this time many of which are closed and gone since, it really was a different era culturally in Ireland. Our home was in the parish of Kilgobnet and they had their own branch of Comhaltas which we joined as members, Comeraghs Comhaltas branch. This branch was run by a great man, Micheal Marrinan, he was a very active and encouraging man all over County and the person that actually got Bobby Gardiner to come and teach in Co.Waterford in the various branches of Comhaltas. 

My Father picked up a late 1950's 2 coupler Paolo Soprani and Maurice Walsh (a Garda Sergeant in Ballymacarbry at the time) tuned it up lovely for me. These red 4 voice B/C Soprani accordions were the popular boxes at the time, there wasn't many wooden accordions to be seen around then.

Micheal Marrinan and his wife Mary used to go all over the country to the small festivals and weekends and lucky for me I was brought along to some of these with them, Knochnagree in Sliabh Luachara had the Denis Murphy weekend, the Feakle Festival in Co.Clare and one I made it down to was the first Phil Murphy Festival in Carrick On Bannow in Co.Wexford which held a workshop with the great Sliabh Luachra accordion player Jackie Daly, it was here that my life changed accordion-wise anyway, I discovered the C#/D press n'draw style of accordion for the very first time from Mr Daly, it blew me away to be honest. This was an older style based on the 10 key melodeon system basically so it was definitely for me. I left Co.Wexford that weekend  with a cassette tape full of great C#/D tunes and playing, the challenge of a new box style and another great new album of more wonderful harmonica music 'The Trip to Cullenstown' by Phil, John & Pip Murphy. I set out to get one of these press n'draw accordions, the first one I bought was an 1950's Hohner in the key of D/D# from another great accordionist Eoin O'Sullivan from Michelstown, Co.Cork. All the press n' draw accordion players like Joe Cooley, Jackie Daly, Martin O'Connor and Tony McMahon had fantastic solo and some band albums released and I had a ball learning tunes from the cassette tapes and LP records at home. I was fortunate to get a whole day workshop in Mitchelstown, Co.Cork with Aidan Coffey & Eoin O Sullivan around this time, both of them were great players of course and both major influences on my developing press and draw style.