Mickey Joe Harte
| Mickey Harte | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Michael Joseph Harte |
| Also known as | MJ |
| Born | 1973 Lifford, County Donegal, Ireland |
| Genres |
Pop Pop rock |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Years active | 1993 – present |
| Labels | Swerve Music Ltd. |
| Website | http://www.mickeyjoeharte.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Guitar | |
Michael Joseph "Mickey Joe" Harte (born 1973), now simply known as Mickey Harte, is an Irish singer-songwriter. He represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 with the song "We've Got the World".
Harte hails from Lifford, County Donegal. As a teenager during the 1980s Harte had an epiphany - "Because the moment I lifted a guitar and wrote my first song I knew I was creative", he has said. He started playing guitar at the age of 13. His first song, called "Candlelight", was inspired by Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 U.S invasion of Iraq. He later paid for the recording of his first extended play (EP). His mother, a poet, has had her work set to music by her son.
By the mid-1990s Harte was frustrated by the progress of Boyzone and Louis Walsh in "turn[ing] Ireland more into a country for boy bands". He has described this period, "Yet at times like that I felt I'd never get a break and was desperate because during the boy band era no one wanted singer-songwriters. It would have helped if, say Boyzone, had recorded songs by Irish songwriters, but most of their songs were written by songwriters from abroad, so we didn't even get a chance to have a song covered. If I had, that certainly would have paid the mortgage for a few years! Although, at first, like most Irish singer-songwriters I was totally anti-boy bands until I realised we had to try and work our way through it".
After years of struggle, Harte entered the Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) television show You're a Star. The show set records for Irish TV ratings over the period of November 2002 to March 2003 and Harte came out on top, earning the opportunity to represent Ireland at Eurovision Song Contest 2003 in Riga. In Riga he performed "We've Got the World" (written by Martin Brannigan and Keith Molloy). He finished in eleventh place in the competition. "We've Got the World" reached number one on the Irish Singles Chart.
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