They were the best of bands, they were the worst of bands.
Irish Popstars the television show truly gripped the nation and Sunday nights haven’t been the same since… kind of.
Nevertheless, the show had it all. Singing, dancing, crying and a girl lying about her age.
At the end, we were faced with the Irish supergroup Six, who went on to have a long and fruitful music career spanning two whole years (2001-2003). The band are famous for their cover of Whole Lotta Lovin’, but to be honest that’s about it.
It has now been a whopping FIFTEEN years since the band released their debut single on Valentine’s Day 2002. Allow us to remind you:
So we thought we’d have a look at what our favourite band of 2002 are up to now!
Sinéad Sheppard
Ahhh who could forget our favourite brunette, with the sultry tones and the strong Cork accent?
Some might say that the end of Six was the start of Sinéad, who is now well on her way to political domination. She originally opened up her own dance school in her hometown of Cobh, but she went on to bigger and better things being elected Mayor of Cobh in 2012. She is currently a member of the Cork County Council.
Sinéad Sheppard’s official Wiki description is, “Irish politician and dancing tutor, and former member of a prominent but short-lived pop group.” New-age politician am I right?
When she married in 2012, she invited the other ‘five’ along for the occasion. Definition of squad goals.
Fun fact: In 2012 when Sinéad was Mayor of Cobh, she took part in a flashmob supporting a Yes vote in the children’s referendum. Some of those dance moves look suspiciously familiar…
Mayor of Cobh Sinead Sheppard leading a flashmob in Cork for a Yes vote in the Children's referendum. #crref http://t.co/sLLAS2Wp
— Alan Healy (@AlanHealy) November 6, 2012
Emma O’Driscoll
Limerick girl Emma O’Driscoll went on to have an incredibly successful presenting career working alongside one of Ireland’s most famous and well respected television broadcasters, Socky the sock-monster.
She previously presented the Morning Show on a local radio station Live 95fm, and whilst presenting on The Den she kicked off her career as GAA manager. O’Driscoll appeared on the hit show Celebrity Banisteoir when she inexpertly guided her team St. Pat’s of Limerick to the semi-finals. A fantastic achievement for any Limerick team!
Emma is still an RTÉ presenter, but she also runs her own stage school and is now the author of a children’s book!
Fun fact: Emma once appeared on a postage stamp. Yes, you read that correctly. As part of celebrations marking RTÉ’s 50th anniversary, Emma appeared on a stamp along with Gay Byrne and Anne Doyle.
Liam McKenna
Good old Leeeem.
While the rest of the Six stars fled the nest somewhat, Liam stayed close to mentor Louis Walsh.
During Louis’s time on The X Factor the Tyrone man worked behind the scenes on the show and he even wrote a weekly column for the Irish Daily Star documenting all the gossip. He also dabbled in presenting, contributing to The Afternoon Show on TV3 and hosting the ChildLine Concert in 2009.
In 2010, Liam took on the biggest challenge known to mankind: managing Jedward. As part of this ordeal, he had to co-star in their television series OMG! It’s Jedward. The poor fella could only stick out two years in the job before he resigned as their tour manager, which was probably a good move for his own sanity.
The 30-year-old stuck to the music management however and he currently manages Irish boy-band Hometown and the one and only Shane Filan!
Fun fact: As part of his job as Jedward’s manager he once had to make a statement to the press announcing that Jedward were not in fact gay but that they had made the decision not to have pre-marital sex because “The Jonas Brothers are their idols and they said they didn’t want sex before marriage. I think the boys live their life by these guys.” GAS!
Andy Orr
Oh Andy, you hunk of a man, what are you doing now?
Well, a lot more than he was doing in his popstar days that’s for sure. After the band fell apart, he spent a bit of time managing a band called Y23 which was incidentally fronted by fellow Six member Emma O’Driscoll.
After his tentative foray in the world of managing a band, he then took the natural next step and became an equity finance trader. Obviously.
Andy is now the vice-president and European Desk Head of Equity Finance Trading at Blackrock, Dublin, but sources can confirm that yes, he still gels his hair like that.
Fun fact: Andy really really really likes pancakes. Check out his Twitter it’s gas! (@utrexis)
Happy pancake Tuesday eve!
— Andy Orr (@utrexis) February 20, 2012
Happy Pancake Tuesday!
— Andy Orr (@utrexis) February 21, 2012
Happy Pancake Thursday!!! … Cause sometimes one day just ain't enough!!
— Andy Orr (@utrexis) February 23, 2012
Sarah Keating
We won’t lie, we kind of forgot that she existed. Sarah didn’t originally make the band, but was slotted in at the last minute after the whole Nadine Coyle ‘she’s only 16!’ age controversy.
Her role in the band however was that kind of unofficial ‘she’s the best singer’ role as everyone else ‘oohh’d and aahh’d’ in the background. When Six ended, Sarah turned her hand to journalism as she became a researcher for Newstalk in Dublin. She then upgraded to the role of presenter at Phantom radio station.
Keating has since hopped across the pond to join the BBC where she works as a researcher on BBC Radio 4! She also has a son called Aidan.
Fun fact: She once found metal in her ice-cream? (We’re sorry, we could find very little fun nor interesting about Saz.)
.@SuperValuIRL found these metal bits in our Supervalu salted caramel ice cream which we bought in Tuam – not good! pic.twitter.com/DHMkZGGdoE
— Sarah Keating (@Schkeat) July 1, 2015
Kyle Anderson
The accent. The hair. The year round tan. Classic Kyle!
Kyle went on to present a television show on TV3 called Activity Breaks in 2006. He continued to work with the production company responsible for the programme, Screentime Shinawil, but this time he was behind the scenes, working on shows like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den.
Following in the footsteps of his former band-mate Sarah Keating he too, worked for the BBC for a short time, before returning to his native Northern Ireland where he is an assistant producer at documentary-makers Wadell Media.
And when Kyle got married back in 2014, he like Sinéad invited the other five to the wedding, and thankfully Andy was on hand to tweet about it! Phew!
For one night only…. #sixreunion pic.twitter.com/D4OI78T2vz
— Andy Orr (@utrexis) August 2, 2014
Fun fact: Kyle dated Jenny Curran, who was runner-up in the Miss Northern Ireland competition FOUR times. Woah. What a successful couple…
And last but certainly not least… the bould Nadine Coyle
Ah yes Nadine, the liar. Don’t you just hate when you forget what year you were born in? SO annoying.
But all things considered, it definitely worked out the best for the Derry native. I think Nadine’s key to her success was getting out of Six before it even started.
After Nadine was dramatically removed from the band following the scandal around her age she returned to secondary school, claiming she was “exploited” by RTÉ. It didn’t deter her however, and off she popped to the UK to audition for Pop Stars: The Rivals, where she made the band (again), but this time, she wasn’t kicked out.
And thus, Girls Aloud with Cheryl Tweedy (lol), Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberly Walsh making up the rest of the band.
Girls Aloud went on to have relatively amazing success considering their reality TV show beginnings, releasing five albums all of which went platinum.
Coyle then broke away and released a solo album ‘Insaitable’ which had moderate success.
She’s now a mother of one, living in ‘Murica, running her own Irish pub, and she’s currently dating former American football player, Jason Bell.
Looks like everything came up just Rosie for Nadine!
The post Six from Irish Popstars: Where are they now 15 years later? appeared first on EVOKE.ie.