Paul Brennan became director of the Cecilian Singers in 2007. He has a long experience of organising and directing chorale ensembles and large choirs. The first group he created, a male quartet, won the Marchant Cup in the Dublin Feis Ceoil. Subsequently he directed other chamber groups. He was chorus master for the Dundalk Musical Society for many years and became director of the Michael Van Dessel Choir when its founder Michael Van Dessel died.   He conducted the Armagh Archdiocesan Coir at the canonisation of St. Oliver Plunkett in St Peter’s in Rome in 1975, and during the subsequent triduum when the choir sang Van Dessel’s Mass in Honour of Blessed Oliver Plunkett in the three great Roman basilicas. He also conducted the Armagh Archdiocesan Choir during the visit of Pope John Paul II to Killineer near Drogheda in 1979.   He rehearsed and conducted performances of a number of musicals and light operas and conducted the Blackrock Musical Society’s performance of Die Fledermaus when they won the award for the best light opera performance at the Waterford Light Opera Festival.   With the Michael Van Dessel Choir he prepared and conducted some of the standard works in the choral repertoire, including Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas oratorio, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols. Under his direction the choir won many competitions at choral festivals.   He also prepared choirs for performances of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Haydn’s Creation in the National Concert Hall in Dublin.   Since he became director of the Cecilian Singers they have given a number of performances, including two very successful concerts in Drogheda and Dundalk. While striving for the highest possible standard of choral performance, his approach can be best summed in the words he used on the night he first met the choir: ‘We should aim for the best possible performance we can give, but the most important thing is that we should enjoy it – not just in performance but every night that we practise. If we don’t, there is no point’.