A boy from Cork's Northside who made it big in Australia

FROM humble beginnings, born in a one-room flat in Wolfe Tone Street, Mike Bowen has forged a career as an insurance broker in Melbourne, become a published author, a songwriter, and is the inventor of the biggest money-spinner in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest - televoting.

Not bad at all!

“I was born just off Cathedral Road on the Northside of Cork,” Mike told me on a visit home recently - his 60th time since emigrating to Australia.

“I am treated like a king here,” says Mike of the Maldron Hotel, a familiar haunt when he is in town.

“I always get an enormous welcome from my old friend, hotel manager, Joe Kennedy.”

Mike, whose parents were Liza and Mick, spent a lot of time in that neck of the woods growing up.

“I was very often in the North Infirmary with pneumonia or bronchitis,” he says.

“My dad was an alcoholic and my mother suffered from TB. 

They were difficult times and my sister, Breda, and I often looked to the kind nuns for help, or we’d go to City Hall with Aunt Mary for help.

Mary had a saying that Mike always re, ‘You might have been born in sh*t, but you don’t have to live in sh*t. You have a choice.’

Mike, despite being dyslexic, strove to better himself and one of his first jobs was as a travelling salesman in Munster, before ing Gael Linn in Kerry as manager.

When two relationships Mike had didn’t work out, he decided to go Down Under.

Being brought up on the Northside gave him resilience and determination. What was life like growing up in Cork city in the years after World War II?

“It was a cold and hungry time for a lot of families and I’m sure ours was only one of many that struggled to stay warm and fed,” says Mike, born in 1949. 

“My mother was always in ill-health, spending long periods of time in sanatoriums. 

She had tuberculosis and, in her absences, Breda and I were left to fend for ourselves because Mick was unable to come home due to his drunken state on many a night.

“Breda and I were two lost souls; no money, no food, no heat, and an army-issued overcoat full of fleas for bedclothes.”

Times were tough.

“When my mother was not in hospital, she would sometimes take me with her to the Vincent de Paul’s looking for food vouchers and then on to other charities.

“Having gone through those experiences in my childhood, I am a great irer and er of Catriona Twomey and Penny Dinners.”

In his new biography, A Time Of Secrets, Mike paints a picture of the Northside, complete with unique characters and relationships.

“Yes, Gurranabraher was a wonderful place for a fertile mind,” he says. “It gave me my foundation, it gave me my strength. 

There, I learned to become streetwise among my peers who taught me better than any university professor.

“I learned dignity and respect for those around me and I also learned there was much that was kept from me.”

After just picking a destination from the flight information at Heathrow Airport, Mike decided on Melbourne to seek his fortune and make good.

“I ed where the great athlete, Ronnie Delany, won Olympic gold for Ireland in 1956,” he says.

Armed with the attributes of a true Northsider, he tells me how he landed his first job.

“I knew nobody, only the people I met,” says Mike. “I applied for my first sales job with Mazda. They made light-bulbs in Ireland. I got a shock when I realised Mazda was a car dealership!”

Ray, the manager of the car dealership, was not impressed. But he changed his mind.

“I made a deal with Ray and told him I’d work a week with no pay and if I didn’t sell a car, I would walk away.”

That didn’t happen.

“I ended up being the most successful salesman in Mazda and worked there for eight or nine years,” says Mike.

I built relationships and made good s.

Despite being dyslexic, Mike ed insurance company AMP after doing his exams and qualified as an insurance planner, helping expand the business with two other partners who grew other agents.

Mike was on his way to the Big Time. And he was on his way home.

“I came home to Ireland, to Dunquin, to write music and poetry. I wrote profusely - and I had come back as a better person.”

Mike’s recordings went towards helping good causes like Hand In Hand, that children with cancer, and he recorded a song which he wrote about the children of Northern Ireland.

In 1990, Mike entered a song for the national song contest, Say That You Love Me, sung by Fran Meen. He and his business partner Alan Sheratt, planned to make the Eurovision Song Contest a world event and include countries such as Australia.

Mike, with a love of music and song, did his research, exploring all avenues.

“My insertion into the music industry brought me to the presidency of the Australian Songwriters Association INC, where I stayed for some years,” says Mike.

“And in turn, with Alan, my business partner, that opportunity led us through the doors of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Geneva, via Liam Miller and RTÉ, to work on changing and revamping the structure of the Eurovision Song Contest.

“We worked for almost three years behind the scenes with the EBU, to revamp the ‘stale and tired’ Eurovision format. Our main plan was to make it a world event and include countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the Far East ( of the EBU). Ambition fulfilled.”

Australia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest eight times since its debut in 2015.

In A Time Of Secrets, we discover what made Mike and how his impoverished upbringing in Cork’s Northside helped him rise to great heights in life, fulfilling his ambitions.

We are transported back to the ballrooms of romance, the innocent relationships that were formed, and their consequences.

“Yes, I have come a long way from having patches on the arse of my tros,” says Mike, who only has one lung. 

I have been privileged in so may ways; to have the foresight to grasp opportunities and work hard, to have the love and of some magic people who helped me on my way, and I thank God for the good sense not to bear grudges and carry chips on my shoulder.

Everyone needs an angel on their shoulder.

“A Time Of Secrets is dedicated to my Aunt Mary,” says Mike. “She was my own angel on earth - who unknowingly was my life’s expedition leader. No-one can possibly climb Mount Everest on one’s own.

“Aunt Mary offered me encouragement and showed unshakable belief in my abilities when nobody else did.”

Mike is proud of his name and of the place where he came from.

I’ll wear the name Mike Bowen until the end of my days, like a badge of honour, as Aunt Mary would wish.

Does he ask anything else of life?

“I ask you that you don’t dislike me for what I’m not, but like me for what I am.”