CIAN AND ABLE Breaffy’s Cian Morrin wowed the judges on X Factor at the weekend.
Breaffy’s Butcher’s Boy has X Factor
Cian (17) qualifies for Boot Camp in hit TV show
Edwin McGreal
edwinmcgreal@mayonews.ie
Cian Morrin was the envy of his schoolmates in St Gerald’s College, Castlebar yesterday (Monday) after his hugely successful appearance on X Factor on Saturday night.
Over eight million people in the UK and Ireland tuned into ITV and TV3 for Saturday night’s episode of the hit music talent show and Cian (17), from Rinshinna, Breaffy, wowed the four judges with his rendition of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ to fly through to the next stage of the competition, the infamous Boot Camp.
Kiltimagh native Louis Walsh had praise for his fellow county man.
“A small guy, 17 … that great, big voice. You’ve got great potential,” he said.
Cian’s appearance was edited into a one minute clip for last Saturday’s show but the praise he got from other judges Gary Barlow and Tulisa Contostavlos. although not shown on TV, was even greater.
“Tulisa said I had a voice which could sell albums and Gary said he would love to work with me in the future,” Cian told The Mayo News yesterday.
The Leaving Cert student has been performing in a band called Scale 3 with friends Thomas Coll and James Durcan and an hour after his audition was shown to millions, Scale 3 were performing in Sam Adams’ Bar in Castlebar.
After working as a butcher in Super Valu, Castlebar while he was in Transition Year and Fifth Year, Cian introduced himself as a ‘Butcher’s Boy’ when Gary Barlow asked him what he did.
Barlow replied that he must have problems getting girls with that job.
“It’s not a good look … Hopefully the X Factor might change that,” joked Cian with the Take That star.
His performance prompted Tulisa to say: ‘you’re a cheeky chappy as well, I think the girls are going to start to like you after that performance’.
“It was a surreal experience,” Cian said. “I was waiting backstage, listening to the noise of the huge crowd and that was scary enough. I didn’t feel too nervous when I got on stage though, I was confident enough in the song that I picked,” he said.
The ‘live’ audition before the crowd and the judges took place in May in Liverpool. Cian had travelled to Glasgow earlier in the year for auditions in front of producers and made the cut to appear before the judges. His father Paraic and younger brother Daire were on hand to congratulate as he came off stage while mother Caroline and younger brothers Eimhin and Finian watched with pride on Saturday evening too.
On social networking site Twitter Cian had around 200 followers before Saturday evening’s appearance. Now it has swelled to 1,400. Not that his head is swelling with it.
“There was a message on information screens around the school congratulating me and all the teachers were talking about how they had seen it. All the lads though were slagging me and having the craic. They definitely won’t let me get too big for my boots,” laughed Cian.
He has been playing guitar since the age of ten and auditioned for the All-Ireland Talent Show while he was still in national school. Daithí Ó Sé turned him down though and Cian decided he would wait until he felt he was ready before giving the world’s most renowned talent show a go.
“The X-Factor is the biggest competition going. I said I’d wait until I was fully ready before going for it and it has gone very well so far. I went for it because I want to have a career in music and hopefully I’ll be able to do that,” said Cian.
The next stage is Boot Camp where acts are in intensive training for over a week. That took place over the summer but Cian is sworn to secrecy on how he fared. One thing is for sure though from watching him on X Factor and his many clips on YouTube, the future is very bright for Breaffy’s Butcher’s Boy.
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