John Spillane is playing his cards right

Spillane has achieved the unusual distinction of becoming the face of the public transport Leap card in his native Cork

John Spillane: ‘The best way of learning how to write a song is to write a song’

‘I invented the problem, and then I invented the solution.” Down the phone from his home in Cork, John Spillane chuckles. The singer-songwriter is explaining exactly how it has come to pass that a rare and unusual honour has been bestowed upon him: he has wound up as the face of the Leap card in Cork, and the voice of its accompanying advertising campaign.

“I wrote a song called Johnny Don’t Go to ...