Musician Sharon Corr says she loves living in Spain because it’s like being in Ireland with the sun.
The Corrs violinist moved to Madrid with her then-husband Gavin Bonnar and their two teenage children in 2018 and she remained in Spain despite the couple splitting soon after.
The Dundalk-born 52-year-old singer-songwriter, who has released several solo albums, helped promote Irish culture earlier this week when she performed for commuters at a Madrid tube station.
Overnight she revealed in an interview she would celebrate St Patrick’s Day by heading to Madrid’s Plaza Mayor central square to watch more than 300 bagpipers perform as part of the Spanish capital's traditional parade held in honour of the patron saint of Ireland.
Opening up on the place she now calls home, Sharon added in an interview with glossy Spanish magazine Hola: “I’ve had the time to travel around the whole country to get to know how people live here, and I’ve discovered it’s very varied, and each place is different."
Admitting she loved Galicia because it was so similar to Ireland and its food was great, as well as the Costa Brava north of Barcelona, Sharon added: “I’m happy being in Spain.
“People are very entertaining, very similar to the Irish.
“They love being on café and bar terraces all day and on top of that there’s sunshine. I love it.”
The musician also admitted she cooks up a typical Irish stew when she’s at home, but prefers a slice of Spanish omelette or tapas to an Irish beer when she’s out.
Of the sort of things she gets up in Madrid when she’s not working, she joked: “I’ve visited the Thyssen Museum with my children, but they prefer me to take them for something to eat.”
The former ‘Voice of Ireland’ coach revealed she was planning to return briefly to Ireland next month on what is thought to be a work trip.
She told Hola: “I always go back to Ireland at Christmas because I like meeting up with my family and friends and I take the children.
“I’m spending my next holiday in Greece, a country I’ve never been to, and I really want to get to know. I’m going with my children and a girlfriend from Ireland.”
Sharon’s Belfast-born barrister ex went to live with Telma Ortiz, the sister of the queen of Spain. They welcomed their first child in October 2021.
She and Gavin Bonnar made the decision to split in 2019, and it inspired her to write a powerful solo album called The Fool And The Scorpion.
Admitting she broke down on a flight to Switzerland around the time of the split, Sharon admitted in September 2021: “I was crying on the plane and I didn't care that I was crying. If people were looking at me, that didn't matter.
“I felt the gigantic storm outside was in sync with what was going on in my life. It was almost therapy, because there was definitely a huge storm going on inside of me. These words of a song just started to fall out of me.
"While the plane took ages to take off, I wrote and wrote and wrote,”
