Brian O’Driscoll recalls double heartache for family of house burning down on same day of uncle’s funeral

BRIAN O’Driscoll has recalled when his house burnt down as a kid – on the same day as his uncle’s funeral. 

The former rugby star is one of the world’s greatest ever players. 

But when it comes to music, he told Dave Fanning that his family weren’t big into it. 

He said: “My knowledge of music isn’t particularly good. It’s an eclectic mix. I’ve never really hung my hat on one or two artists, other than Springsteen and U2 maybe I’ve really enjoyed.

“But it’s been sporadic, it’s been one or two tunes from different artists and it’s so many different genres I can have an appreciation for. They’re the ones I didn’t want to shame myself with.

“There’s another conversation to be had where I lose absolutely all street cred on some five or six tunes that I might pick that I would also enjoy.”

In the Fanning at Whelans show earlier tonight, BOD picked some of the songs that bring back memories for him.

And one was Bryan Adams Everything I Do, I Do it For You.

He said: “This is sort of a bad memory but a good one too. In 91, our house burnt down – the day of my uncle’s funeral, my dad’s brother. I was playing football in the green up the road and the next thing someone said, ‘there’s a fire in your house.’ I looked down and the whole house was engulfed. 

“The reason this song reminds me is because we moved to the apartment above my parents’ surgery and it was 16 weeks at number one in 1991… I remember sitting in the front room in Clontarf, looking  out and thinking as a teenager, this is a serious tune.”

He said it is all ok now and his parents are back living in the house and he “got a full new wardrobe out of it” as a teen. 

Another song was his ‘first cap song,’ which is where a player has to perform in front of the rest of the team after their first match.

He said: “I was always a Christy Moore fan and then after I got capped, he became a regular fixture in the Ireland set-up.

“He used to come in for gigs the whole time. But before I ever knew that that was gong to be the case, you needed a first cap song. And I thought ‘what am I going to sing?’

“I don’t really have any voice whatsoever. But I thought I might be able to Christy Moore this one away. 

“Not that Christy doesn’t have an amazing voice but something a bit slower and I always liked it as a song. Some of the other Christy song