Dancing queen

"Next up on the floor we have Ireland’s new queen of country,” presenter Jennifer Zamparelli proclaimed ahead of Cliona Hagan’s first performance on Dancing with the Stars.

With two albums and just over three years clocked up in Irish country music, Cliona is a household name among those on “the scene”.

But, her latest venture as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars has seen her popularity spark among a much wider audience, as her boogies are beamed into households across the country on Sunday nights.

On their initial turn about the floor, Cliona and her dance partner Robert Rowinski earned a top place on the leader board with a quickstep to Country Girl Shake It For Me.

“It’s letting people know who I am, where I come from and what I’m about,” says Cliona of her first foray on the floor. “Country music is a part of me."

Robert was suggesting that we put a little country twist in it. He asked did I know any country moves. I said that I knew a little bit of a shuffle of a line dance from side-to-side.

“We were trying to come up with the routine and I was like, what about this slapping of the leg kind of thing and lassoing. It came together and it was such a fun element to the quickstep, because obviously the quickstep is very graceful.”

Alongside her hopes to go far in the competition, Cliona is also eager to show people the cool side of country.

“I think there is always this predetermined misconception that country music is only for the 60 plus age group. Something that your granny and your granda would have gone out to the old dance halls for, maybe had an egg and onion sandwich and then went for a bit of a dance,” she chuckles.

“It’s great that it’s not just for a single age group, it’s for young and old. Everyone in the family could go out to a dance hall. It’s very family orientated. It’s a very safe place to be.

“Anyone that’s there, it’s not really about the drinking. Don’t get me wrong, people have a few drinks, but it’s all about the dancing. You see the lads and the girls there, they have their pints of water and a spare shirt in the car.”

Dance on

When Cliona meets Irish Country Living at the Gibson Hotel in Dublin for this interview, she is taking a break from rehearsal in a nearby studio.

Despite her hectic schedule with dance practice, Cliona is neither stressed nor in a rush, messing around good humouredly. Laughing, she tells us that Robert phoned on the way over, requesting a special piece of information.

It is clear the pair have a great rapport. The singer jokes that this is in spite of the fact that they have a slight language barrier, with Robert being from Poland and Cliona Northern Ireland.

“Obviously we are just lost in translation with each other. I said when we were practising: ‘Do I stand on my tippy-toes?’ He said: ‘Tippy, tippy, what?’ I said: ‘Like a ballerina.’ To which he replied: ‘No babs, you no ballerina,’” Cliona howls while recounting the tale.

Obviously, they have plenty of fun, but loads of hard work is put in too and this has paid off for them with favourable comments and scores from the judges.

Cliona insists though that she is a singer and not a dancer, with her only formal dance training prior to this being a brief spell of Irish dancing as a child.

“When I was younger, about seven or eight, me and my two older sisters went to Irish dancing. They were really good. I was so bad, I was like: ‘Mummy, I don’t want to go anymore,’ and Mummy was like: ‘That’s alright pet, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go.’”

Looking at Cliona now, whether it be singing or dancing, it is difficult to believe her path wasn’t always set on being a performer.

Although in her younger years she sang on The Late Late Toy Show and the finals of The All-Ireland Talent Show, for a while she stepped away from her dream of being a singer.

Cliona was always a fan of Shania Twain, Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks growing up, but trained as a classical singer in her younger years.

“Even though I have such huge respect and admiration for classical music, it never really pulled at my heartstrings.

"I think because I was singing in a different language, I didn’t know what I was singing about half the time. With country music, there’s a song for every emotion.”

After school Cliona studied music at Queen’s University Belfast, before going on to qualify as a music teacher at the University of Edinburgh and teach in Scotland for a year.

“Then I was getting a wee bit homesick, my sister had just had her first baby. It was only 45 minutes on a flight, but I felt I was missing out,” she reflects.

“I wasn’t there in the hospital when our Nicole had wee Anton. I was just missing everyone, I was missing my friends.”

So she returned home, working in a school in Lurgan, Co Armagh, for a further year. “During that year I started to realise within myself, I was missing being on that stage.

"People were even saying to me: ‘Och, well Cliona, have you been performing this weather?’ I’d be just like: ‘No, I haven’t.’”

After a sit down chat with her mother, who was understanding and encouraging as always, Cliona decided to give the Irish country music scene a go and set about doing her homework.

We’re All Gonna Die Someday

Soon after, Cliona was booked into Jonathan Owens’ studio in Longford to record her first single. Her mother offered to drive her down and a routine pit stop on the way changed their course of action completely, landing her debut single on her lap, literally.

“Our local shop, they always play great country music. Mummy said, ‘Where did you get that CD, I’d love to buy it?’ The man in the shop said he burned them off himself, but that she could take away that one.

"Mummy was explaining to him that her daughter was looking to get into the country scene. He said: ‘God, there’s some great songs in there, I hope this helps’.

“Me and Mummy, we were driving down to Longford to Jonathan Owens. All off a sudden, We’re All Gonna Die Someday came on the CD,” she smiles.

“I says to Mummy: ‘I actually really like this song. What do you think of it?’ And she says: ‘God, it’s a good wee song, I’ve never heard it before.’”

A new idea for the single captivated Cliona. They stopped the car, dug out a pen and paper from the back and wrote down the words.

“We were literally an hour away from Longford. Some of the original words are a bit risqué, I didn’t want a version that the radios wouldn’t play. So Mummy and myself, we changed the words round, the inappropriate words.”

In Longford, Jonathan approved of the new song choice. “So we got working on it and, no word of a lie, I think I sang through it four times and we got it.

Bubbly, vivacious and a risk-taker, it is hard to believe Cliona was once an incredibly shy child. But over time she changed to someone who seizes every opportunity.

“I don’t know what happened or what changed in my brain, because I was always painfully shy. It’s hard to believe.

"In school I wouldn’t have even put my hand up if I knew the answer to a question. But, obviously, the older I got I said: ‘Let’s go for it.’ I’d try anything, I don’t take myself seriously.”

After all, We’re All Gonna Die Someday.

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