Profile Nicky Byrne

'Nicholas Bernard James Adam Byrne Jr (born 9 October 1978 in Dublin) is the oldest member of the popular Irish pop band, Westlife.
Before his music career he played professional football and represented Republic of Ireland at several underage levels. Since then he has had a successful international radio career. His wife is the daughter of former Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and they have twin sons together.

Public life

Football career

Byrne was a footballer who played for Home Farm F.C. and St. Kevins Boys F.C. in North Dublin.^[1] He became a professional football player, and joined Leeds United as a goalkeeper in 1995, and was a squad member of the FA Youth Cup winning team of 1997^[2]
He played for Leeds for two years, leaving when his contract expired in June 1997. He played in a reserve game for Scarborough F.C. and in a trial game with Cambridge United before returning to join Dublin club Shelbourne. He then signed for Cobh Ramblers playing 11 games, then St. Francis F.C., all in Ireland's League of Ireland.^[3]
On 14 May 2009 Nicky was a substitute for a Liverpool F.C. Legends XI that played against an All Star XI in a Hillsborough Memorial match to mark the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. All the proceeds from the match went to the Marina Dalglish appeal.
He represented the Republic of Ireland at U15, U16 and U18 levels.

Music career

Main article: Westlife

In June 1998, Byrne attended an audition for new Irish boyband, where he was spotted by Boyzone manager Louis Walsh, who approached him to join his new venture, Westlife. Byrne joined Westlife along with Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and Brian McFadden. The band's name had to be changed to Westlife after it was discovered a number of bands already had the name Westside.
Byrne revealed in Westlife: Our Story that he had wanted to change the name of the band to West High; but the others preferred Westlife. His first album with Westlife was released in November, 1999, titled Westlife. With Westlife, Byrne has had fourteen UK number ones and seven number one albums in the UK, and sold forty million records worldwide.^[4]
Byrne also had a number one single in Ireland in 2002, alongside the Republic of Ireland national football team and Dustin the Turkey with the Irish 2002 FIFA World Cup anthem, "Here Come The Good Times (Ireland)".
Byrne has also co-written a few songs, along with the other band members, including:^[5]

• "Nothing Is Impossible"
• "Don't Let Me Go"
• "When You Come Around"
• "Imaginary Diva"
• "Reason For Living"
• "Crying Girl"
• "You Don't Know"
• "Never Knew I Was Losing You"
• "Where We Belong"
• "Singing Forever"
• "I Won't Let You Down"
• "You See Friends (I See Lovers)"
• "I'm Missing Loving You"
• "When It Comes to Love"
• "Too Hard to Say Goodbye"

Byrne is also currently one of the board of directors of Clikthrough, a video interactive site.^[6]

Radio career

Byrne presented several editions of the Celebrity Sunday programme on RTÉ 2fm in 2010.^[7] Listeners tuned in from as far and wide as Mexico, Chile, England, Scotland, Philippines and Indonesia. The fourth and final edition of the programme, broadcast on February 14, 2010, was a top-ten international trend on Twitter.^[8]