It is 40 years since Ireland, and the whole of Europe, fell in love with Logan and his white suit

ITS 40 YEARS SINCE IRELAND, AND THE WHOLE OF EUROPE, FELL IN LOVE WITH LOGAN AND HIS WHITE SUIT. HE TALKS ABOUT MUSIC, RELIGION AND FAMILY AND THEN THINGS GET A BIT AWKWARD
When Irish author John Boyne won Celebrity Home of the Year a couple of years ago, viewers got to see his self-described ego room, the place where he keeps trophy copies of his many novels.
When I video called musician and Eurovision legend Johnny Logan at his home in Ashbourne, Co Meath, it was clear he was sitting in a large room that was equally good for the ego. It was full of Eurovision awards, gold discs, photographs and various mementos from an extraordinary career thats lasted more than four decades.
Silver-haired Logan, who admirers say has a look of Patrick Swayze about him and can still rock a pair of leather trousers, got one of his three adult sons to assist with the call the family wont even let me near the TV remote controls, Im so bad with technology, says the singer who will celebrate his 66th birthday on May 13th.
He is spoiled in lockdown with his wife, Ailis Sherrard, and two of his sons. I cant cook. I am useless. Im very good with the credit card. Thats my frying pan, he says.
Social distancing is not part of my character… But I know I am in a privileged position, I have money, all my dates are moving to next year
Maybe he could use this opportunity and the enforced time off his hectic touring schedule to learn some cooking? He picks up a nearby acoustic guitar and starts playing it to drown out this outlandish suggestion.
Sorry? Singer-songwriter, here, he laughs. Im the only person I know who can burn tea, Róisín . . . my efforts were in different directions throughout my life.
Above his head, hanging on a purple-painted wall, is an example of one life-changing road he took. The eye-catching black and white photo shows him returning to Dublin Airport after his first Eurovision win in 1980, with Shay Healys Whats Another Year. Its exactly 40 years ago last month since Ireland, and the whole of Europe, fell in love with Logan and his white suit.
Forty years ago: Crowds surround Logans car at Dublin Airport after winning Eurovision in 1980. Photograph: Pat Langan
Hes the only person to win the trophy three times, once with Healys song, then singing his own composition Hold Me Now in 1987 and in 1992 when Linda Martin won the contest with Logans song Why Me? (Not forgetting the pop banger Terminal 3 which he also wrote, earning second place for Ireland in 1984. We were robbed, etc.)
In the photo, fresh-faced, sunglasses-wearing Logan is surrounded on all sides by frenzied fans trying to reach across uniformed gardaí to touch the newly minted star. Logan had come through the wrong door so had to be rescued by the police and helped to a waiting limo.
The truth is I ask Johnny Logan about the story behind the photograph to change the subject after our conversation takes a turn for the awkward. But well get to that later.
Up to this point, the interview is going well. We chat about Logans thoughts on the pandemic and about how he is coping in lockdown. Not the best, it turns out. Im a hugger . . . social distancing is not part of my character. His tours have all been cancelled. But I know I am in a privileged position, I have money, all my dates are moving to next year. Hed love nothing more than to get into the car and drive to Howth, to relax and enjoy the sea air, it would be good for my head but were all in this together, people on the frontline need us to do this.
He is trying to keep his fitness regime going. When I am not working I have to do something to remain strong. The last show I did was 3½ hours long in Denmark and I was still jumping around at the end of it. So he does daily physio, watches what he eats. Because youre locked in the house youre not moving around as much and your body starts telling you . . . I feel like an accordion in the morning, he says of his creaking limbs.
Logans warmth shines through, even with screens between us. He doesnt talk to many journalists and has often complained of a difficult relationship with the Irish media over the years. He says he wants to lift peoples spirits so he has done a few interviews including one on YouTube with far right commentator Rowan Croft aka Grand Torino. He was heavily criticised by some for giving the interview.
He says it happened because a friend asked him for a favour. It was agreed beforehand that politics were off the table . . . I have my own views which are nothing to do with his. I am totally non-racist and non-bigoted . . . just because you talk to someone doesnt mean you share their political views.
What’s Another Year? Johnny Logan celebrates his Eurovision win in the Hague. Photograph: Keystone/Getty
In the hour we spend together apart Logan is funny, thoughtful, self-aware, open and generous. He says he is looking forward to May 16th when he will appear on a Eurovision programme slated for the night when the final would have taken place. Hell sing a pre-recorded version of Whats Another Year and therell be some surprises. He also features in the lockdown-themed song Stay At Home Stay Alive along with other Irish singers including Brian Kennedy and Nathan Carter. He is proud, when we speak, that it is number one in the Irish country charts.
He talks a lot about his gentle, very religious Derry-born father Charles Sherrard, who, as a tenor, had the stage name Patrick OHagan. His dad spent a lot of time away touring while his mother, a fiery Kilkenny woman, Eily, held the fort at home with the children.
Christened Seán Patrick Michael Sherrard, Logans parents moved from Ireland to Australia, where he was born, and back to Howth and then Drogheda, before his parents settled later in Surfers Paradise, Australia, where his dad enjoyed a singing career. Logan says he was a really shit electrician before music beckoned. It wouldnt leave me alone, is how he puts it.
His mother a stunning looking woman he says was engaged 11 times before she met his father, who had studied to be a priest at one point. My father obviously found the love of his life in my mum.
By the age of 28, his father had rheumatoid arthritis in his hand, which meant he couldnt earn a living doing a trade. My dad had this belief in his life that God would make everything all right, he says. You know, whatever happened good and bad everything would ultimately be okay. And I grew up with that attitude. Academically I was very bad but I married a schoolteacher so my children got a wonderful education, she took care of that. And did what basically my mother did, watched over the boys and I went out and made the money and came back and then we educated and brought up our sons to be the wonderful human beings they are now. They are really stable because they have solid backgrounds. 
Logans own attitude to religion was coloured, he says, by experiences in school. In Drogheda, at a Christian Brothers school where he was badly beaten up one day by a lay teacher who thought Logan had been laughing at him (he hadnt been). And in Chanel College in Coolock, Dublin when he was younger. He remembers the Marist fathers, putting strange ideas in his and fellow classmates heads. It didnt leave me in a nice place, he says. Hearing a Marist father tell us kids, age 11 or 12: these young girls, I see them, and I know the way you look at them. But if you saw the state of their underwear. As I grew older I understand how sick he was but those things have an effect on you growing up.
He believes in God, and an afterlife but humans have distorted the word of Christ and I find it very hard to believe the word of the church. At the same time, Im a hypocrite because I still go to church and when this is all over, when the doors of the church open up, Ill be in lighting candles for my parents and praying, you know.
Logan says he never wanted to be in the music industry, it just happened. When I was an electrician I carried a guitar and a toolbox into work. And I would entertain fitters and welders and everybody on the building site. In the evenings, on jobs down the country, Id play guitar in the pubs it integrated us into the community.
What would Dickie Rock know about being a musician? My life was a lot different from Dickies
I blame Dickie Rock (okay, and my prurient line of questioning) for the awkward moment in the conversation. When I interviewed showband star Rock a few years ago, he admitted to having been unfaithful to his wife during his heyday. I used Rock as a jumping off point to ask Logan about the challenges of maintaining family life when you spend a lot of time away from home. In addition to performing at a string of lucrative Schlager festivals across Europe, Logans career base and his band is in Germany.
My first mistake is mentioning Dickie Rock. Just hearing his name seems to set Johnny Logan off.
What would Dickie Rock know about being a musician? he asks, not expecting an answer. My life was a lot different from Dickies, he goes on in what turns into a lengthy assessment of his own career versus Rocks. Dickies idea of an international tour was to have a gig in England. He bought a pub in Spain so he could gig there. Thats the reality of it. We know Dickie in Ireland but go out of here and say Dickie Rock and people will think you are talking about some kind of stone youd find in a museum.
I love Dickie but hes a legend in his own head . . . he lives in a fantasy world. You know, Ive sang for Pope John Paul, for the Queen of England, for Prince Charles, for Lady Diana when she was alive for the government of Ireland, for every head of state in Europe . . . I toured with the Royal Symphony Orchestra. Ive done the London Palladium, about 20 times, Top of the Pops about 14 times. Get Dickie to match one of those, you know? Im still touring. And Im busier now than ever.
When Im on stage I dont tell people Ive played for the Queen of England… I know who I am and I know what I can do
I interrupt to explain I am not comparing Logan to Dickie Rock career-wise. That I am more interested in the challenges to family life of being away from home so much.
Yes, of course. It was very, very difficult, he says. I was an electrician, you know, and then I was a singer, and then I was a really successful singer. It still is difficult sometimes . . . although its not as difficult now, something happened when my mother died. When my father died I drank my way through that. But when my mother died, I sang at her funeral and I spoke about her.
I stopped trying to be someone else, he says. I just became myself. When Im on stage I dont tell people Ive played for the Queen of England . . . I know who I am and I know what I can do.
He mentions making, in 2005, an album of Irish drinking songs, ironically, when hed just got sober. (When I express admiration for his strength in giving up alcohol, he says: Its not a case of strength of character, you either do it or you die.) The album went double platinum in Norway and knocked Coldplay off the number one spot in Denmark. The albums success opened up a massive touring market for the singer.
I didnt have the worry of my family when I was away from it, he says. You learn during that period to be two different people. One who was on the road and one who came home and that was never difficult for me because I really was two different people.
I tell him what I am getting at with my question is the fact that Dickie Rock said his life as a star meant he wasnt a very good husband, though Rock also said his wife had forgiven him. Thats none of your business, Róisín, Logan says. The short answer to whether I was a good husband is none of your business. Dickie is Dickie, Im still here.
Logan with songwriter Shay Healy: ‘The fact that 40 years on from Whats Another Year, people still want me to sing that song is huge for me’
I apologise for offending him. You didnt, he replies. I find a lot of journalists use side doors in interviews. I worry our conversation could get derailed, but Logan is gracious and we continue on, talking about that stunning photograph, his appreciation for the reception he gets from audiences in Ireland, his pride in his Eurovision legacy and his fondness for Shay Healy.
I emailed him on the 40th anniversary of Whats Another Year just to tell him I loved him. Im an emotional person, he says. The fact that 40 years on from Whats Another Year, people still want me to sing that song is huge for me.
He has a note from musician Bill Whelan to hand, who he worked with on the Eurovision. He reads it out: Our times working together have been the best of times, working with that voice of yours and your songs has never been less than a privilege and a joyful experience. 
I ask if hes experienced that well-known phenomenon, Irish begrudgery, over the years. Not from the Irish people, he says. In Ireland there is a terrible clique. There are certain people who are trendy and cool, and certain people who are not Ive never doubted my relationship with the Irish people but Ive never been popular with the media and the media have never been popular with me. I have no problem with it any more I dont need the media here. I do interviews because at the moment I think its really important for people to have something to read and to interest them. 
The life Ive led, the success Ive had, will not be measured by the people who sit in judgement in Ireland about what I do with my career. Itll be judged in history, by the people Ive worked with, who Ive influenced and who Ive been lucky enough to share parts of my life with.
With all the rescheduled bookings, he has a very full diary for next year. When this is all finished I cant wait to get out and sing and make people happy again. Including me.
Before we end the call, I ask whether with all his achievements and even a film about him working title, Mr Eurovision in the works, has he any outstanding ambitions.
To keep my hair. And to outlive Dickie Rock, he deadpans.
Europe Shine a Light, a two-hour live show, will be broadcast on Saturday, May 16th