This is a subscriber-only article
Tommy Fleming is many things: a singer, a songwriter, an actor, a son, a brother, a husband and a father, to name just a few. But most strikingly, he is an extremely positive person.
In 1998, Tommy broke his neck in a car accident and was told there was a 95% chance he would never walk again. Remarkably, the singer says it changed his life for the better.
“I always say it was the best thing that ever happened to me and I’ll tell you why: I was 27 and there were a lot of people around me, who shouldn’t have been around me and people working with me, who shouldn’t have been working with me,” he explains.
When I had the accident I was no good to anybody, so they all drifted very quickly and the people who mattered stayed. So, it separated the wheat from the chaff for me.
At the time of the accident, Tommy had been living in Dublin for almost 10 years and the thought of moving back home to live with his parents in Sligo to recover “was the most daunting thing besides the accident”.
Tommy Fleming.
Subsequently, he lived at home for 18 months and, as always, he saw a silver lining.
“I hadn’t lived at home in so long but, you know, when I moved back with my parents I got to know them again; I got to know them as an adult, not as a kid.
"It’s very different and I’ll always, always, be so grateful for that time,” he says.
“It was funny, because they were killing me with kindness, really.
"During the day my mother was filling me with bottles of Lucozade and all the sugary, fattening foods you could eat. Then my dad, at night, would give me glasses of hot poitín to help me sleep!”
The beach
Now 20 years on from the accident, and despite having had a broken neck, one of Tommy’s favourite pastimes is running on Enniscrone beach as well as surfing.
It is right beside where he lives with his wife Tina and a half an hour from where he grew up on a dairy farm in Aclare.
“Enniscrone is big surfing country, but the last while now I’ve seen bigger waves in the bath.
"That is my place I go every morning: where I think, I shout, I give out and I talk to the dog. Honestly, if the dog could talk ... I take him running. When he has enough, he sits down and waits for me to come back.”
That said, it would be misleading to let you think that Tommy simply spends most of his time hanging by the beach.
Naturally, the singer who has sold over 3.5m albums worldwide spends most of his time touring, whether it be the US, Australia, the UK and of course, like at present, Ireland.
Often singers speak about the hardship associated with touring – being away from home, the demands, the stress, the strain – but Tommy simply says: “I love touring. The stage is my home!”
Black is the colour
After 25 years as a solo performer, Tommy has developed certain quirks and routines, one of them being a tidy stage.
“On stage I have the setlist for the band and orchestra.
They are black pages with white writing, so when you are looking from a balcony down, you don’t see loads of white paper. I just think it looks terrible.
Even my cup on the stage, if I’m drinking a throat coat, the cup is jet black inside and out so you can’t see it.
Clearly, his experience over the years, and working with some of the biggest names in the industry, like Vince Gill, Kenny Rogers and Elaine Paige, has allowed Tommy to hone his craft to the very careful art we know him for today.
It is widely acknowledged that Tommy’s career took off after Phil Coulter heard him singing with the band Jarog in Westport.
This was indeed a major catalyst; but in truth, his performing roots go far deeper than that, back to his childhood.
“In what I call the old house, there was a step up between the livingroom and the kitchen. That step was my stage.
I will always, always remember the step up to the kitchen. Opportunity Knocks was a programme on BBC. We were able to get BBC from Enniskillen.
My brothers, sisters and I would emulate whoever had been on Opportunity Knocks that night on the step,” he recalls with a smile.
For a full list of Tommy’s tour dates and booking info, see www.ticketmaster.ie.
SHARING OPTIONS: