Andy Flannagan is a London-based, Irish singer-songwriter who was previously a hospital doctor but whose proudest moment as an Irishman was captaining England’s Barmy Army during the Ashes in Australia. His campaigning songwriting dragged him into the political arena, so he can often be found annoying MPs around Parliament.

He released his first solo album with British label ICC after leading YFC's itinerant band TVB, throughout the UK and Europe. He spent time working as a doctor before taking on his responsibilities with YFC. "Advertising the Invisible" was the fruit of those first few years, and was produced by Dave Lynch (Toploader, Matt Redman).

He is first and foremost a story-teller, weaving hope and pain into songs that soar with beautiful, poignant melodies that betray his Irish roots. His battered Lowden guitar tells the story of fifteen years of acoustic minstrelling – at times mellow, but at times raging against all the things that break a broken world.

The combination of Flannagan’s rhythmic guitar style and the beautifully languid cello of Lucy Payne draws inevitable comparisons with Damien Rice. A “housewives’ favourite” and a “thinking man’s Ronan Keating” are labels that he can’t fully dodge. Flannagan’s edge certainly isn’t in his image, but in his poetic lyrics, which unashamedly peel back layers to leave the listener’s emotions very near the surface. He has been compared to Roddy Frame, Jackson Browne and “The Script” (if they were just one person with an acoustic guitar). He is less ginger than Ed Sheeran but certainly more Irish.

There is a passion for global justice in Andy’s songs that is reflected in their earthy lyrical content. Many of them have been used by NGOs such as Tearfund, Christian Aid, Stop the Traffik, Stop Climate Chaos, and Make Poverty History. Through his work with these agencies Andy has had the privilege of travelling to some of the toughest parts of the world. Having visited Sweatshops in Bangladesh He and his songs were part of the ‘Lift the Label’ campaign that forced retailers, Three songs on his new album were inspired by trips to India, Egypt and Uganda respectively. He fervently believes that the lobbying of the twenty-first century will be lobbying of the heart as much as lobbying of the mind, and that music can do a thousand things that worlds alone can not. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.