Halfway Home

Ronan's first academic music teacher suggested that he learn a certain song for a national competition even though he wasn't quite ready for that song yet. Ronan not only agreed but confidently declared that she would see him win the Tenor section of the competition! Veronica Dunn replied, "There's no holding you back."

I felt that her remark was just right to serve as a very incisive expression of Ronan's chief character trait as expressed in his autobiography. Seemingly he was born with extraordinary portions of confidence, determination, and drive--a fortunate circumstance since he was also born with a physical disability, focamelia, that kept him from fulfilling his exceeding drive for physical freedom and independence. Speaking of his first singing performance which occurred when he was a boy, at Christmastime, (his first publicly performed song being, just for the record, "Mary's Boy Child"), Ronan says "As I stepped from that small stage onto myriad and greater stages in my life, I would carry with me both the love from the crowd and my own insatiable hunger to move freely and in my own way out into the world."

Despite some setbacks, and often while enduring an amazing amount of physical pain, he went forth into the world to become a winner in the field of Paralympic sport where he broke 14 world records and won 18 gold medals; he worked for a time in the prosthetics industry where he helped improve the quality of prosthetics; he became a medical doctor with special interests in various fields; and, of course, he eventually decided that his real vocation was singing. From a young age his urge to sing gave him pleasure in a way that was akin to his general underlying urge to push through to physical freedom by whatever means; and so just as he pushed himself by means of walking, bicycling, running, and horseback riding, he also worked at exercising his voice--even before he knew his vocation was singing. (Later, during his university studies, he exercised his voice a lot in pubs where I wouldn't wonder that he achieved the world's record for greatest number of times singing "Danny Boy." And probably, ten years now since this edition of his autobiography first came out, judging from the frequent joy he took before, I'd guess that he still tends to enjoy exercising in pubs whenever he can...)

Not until about two-thirds of the way through his book does Ronan begin to describe his musical vocation. It did seem to me that the narrative at that point took on a greater energy and vitality. Nevertheless, I found the entire book to be lively and interesting, sometimes outright funny. There are chapters about his childhood and about his school experiences; chapters about his career in prosthetics and in medicine; there is the story about how her served in New York at the time of the 9/11 tragedy for America. He tells incidents about his love affairs; incidents about his delighted experiences with horses; incidents about good friends; and more. Throughout his story, he mentions numerous occasions when he sent up prayers for help in challenging circumstances, and he says God always responded and helped him at those time.

This is very much a book about Ronan's family life, the particular closeness of his relationships with his Mom and Dad and his brother and sister, Tom and Fiona. His Dad proved always an especially supportive person for him. Although he went through a time of finding his Mom's personality irritating, he appreciated her determination and drive, which he surely seems to have inherited. From his birth, she was determined that Ronan would someday walk. In retrospect, he came to appreciate better some of his mother's motives.

I think the book makes a good companion-piece for the album of songs entitled "Ronan," for you do see here how some of the songs in that album express aspects of his life history and his character. In the book, Ronan sometimes uses the expression "over the moon" to describe his feelings of joyful excitement about certain accomplishments and I was reminded of the album song entitled "Ready to Fly." Also on that album one finds the songs he wrote about his Mom and Dad.

Reading about Ronan's singing career and his encounters with outstanding singers was really the crowning enjoyment for me of the book. And anyone who is a singer could surely glean some useful tips and advice here.

In one of his early competitions, although he didn't demonstrate great technical advancement, Ronan was chosen the winner because the judge valued his singing as having "heart" and "showing greatest potential." Again, in that designation by a maestro, the word "heart" seems to me to be an incisive, exactly right recognition of one of Ronan Tynan's most outstanding traits as a singer.

Hopefully, appreciators of Tynan will have the pleasure of reading the other half of his journey "home" someday.