WE ALL know wannabe musicians who long to give up working and revive the musical career of their youth. Few ever get off the barstool and rarely do they do it at the age of 55, giving up a good pensionable job as a school principal in the process.
Two years ago Mick Brady took early retirement from his job as principal of Sion Hill in Blackrock to follow his dream of becoming a professional singer-songwriter. Now, instead of correcting mock exams, Brady is busy promoting his first solo album, The Man Who Invented Swimming.
Like many songwriters, Brady is taking advantage of all the advances in technology to "do everything himself". His album is self published and he is doing all the promotion and distribution. He even did the design work on the CD and made his own video with a hand-held camera and struggling laptop.
Going it alone with out a distributor or record company is a hard slog but nothing compared to the "heavy work load" of a school principal, he says.
While the leap from school principal to roots/rock musician may seem highly unorthodox to most, for those who know Brady it did not come as such a surprise.
Music has always been a part of Brady's life. He's been in a series of what he describes as bar and dance bands. The most well known of these was Hurricane Johnny and the Jets; Brady played bass with the band in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
There was never any question of making a career of it, according to Brady. "We were all semi-professionals doing it for the fun."
Music also played a big role in his career as a teacher. His first teaching job was in Scoil Mhuire, Buncrana where he worked for three years. He spent 17 years as a science and maths teacher at the Holy Faith in the Coombe in Dublin before moving to Sion Hill in Blackrock, where he worked for 13 years - 11 of them as principal.
Widely regarded as a progressive principal, he enthusiastically promoted extra curricular activities, including music and art, during his time at Sion Hill. He even managed to persuade a group of school parents to form a band called Dadzone to help raise funds for the school.
"A lot of people think of education simply in terms of exam results, league tables and CAO points. Other elements such as art, social work and music give kids confidence and responsibilities and the chance to develop other talents. There are so many fantastic things going on in schools that people rarely hear about."
The plain-talking Mick Brady clearly enjoyed his work as an educator, and says he gave up the day job simply because he "wanted to write songs" and didn't want to "wait till 65 and regret not having taken a shot at it".
None of the bands Brady was involved in played original music and he only began thinking about writing his own songs in recent years.
"I had a hankering to write my own songs for a long time. I started writing while I was a principal but it was very difficult."
Writing songs requires time for daydreaming - you can't do that when you are worrying about 10 different things going on in school, he explains.
Once Brady made the decision to try out the song-writing, there was no looking back. He waited two years until he reached the age of 55, making him eligible for early retirement. This meant a cut in his pension, but with his children grown up and his mortgage no longer as "daunting" as it once was, the financial pressures had eased, he explains.
"Once I had made up my mind, then it was very clear it was the right thing for me. A lot of people wouldn't see it in the same light but no one tried to talk me out of it."
Brady describes himself as "really happy and very fulfilled". He now splits his time between Dublin 14 and a second home he built six years ago on the shores of Lough Swilly. He is still gigging with a band called Last Gasp, who, he says, "play anywhere they are asked".
After 33 years in education, Brady concedes he does miss the contact with teachers and pupils, but is happy to be free.
"I am only answerable to myself not to a dozen teachers, thousands of parents, a board of management, the Department of Education and the school trustees."
He says he set out to produce songs that were "up to standard" and is happy that he has achieved this with his album of lyrically driven songs.
Slowly but surely he is getting recognition. Songs from his album have been played on radio stations at home, elsewhere in Europe and even in Japan.
He did an hour-long interview with the Ohio-based Artists First radio station and was named album of the week by the International Songwriters Association last October, an honour, he says, that "usually goes to superstars like Bruce Springsteen". His video, Burning Rubber, has had over 1,500 hits on the YouTube website.
At the tender age of 58, he is full of plans for the future. He is working on a second album and hopes to persuade other artists to record his songs.
Any words of wisdom to others who may be considering equally unusual career moves?
"You have to be sensible. I only took a pay cut that I could handle. But no matter what you have to do, just go do it. It must be awful to wake up one morning and realise it is too late."