On St Patrick’s Day who better to chat to than Irish troubadour and former Australian Idol winner Damien Leith, who’s playing in Goulburn next month.

Damien’s Irish accent is still as thick as Guinness and he can still remember doing Irish dancing in – of all places – Botswana.

“I’ve held on to that Irishness in a real strong way for many reasons because I lived in Africa for nearly 13 years,” Damien said. “It was there for my dad’s work so as a kid we lived in Libya and Botswana and South Africa. But all through those travels we kept really strong links to Ireland.”

“I remember doing Irish dancing in Botswana on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s one of those sort of memories that has always stayed with me. There were a lot of Irish expats there working on a diamond mine and they put on this massive event.”

The real reason why Damien learned Irish dancing, however, wasn’t just to learn the Irish culture.

“The craziness about it was I did Irish dancing because I was from a little village in Ireland and it was a way to try and meet up with girls,” he said. “Then as it turns out, they paired me with my sister so it’s like a cruel Irish joke.”

He actually did well in competitions and won lots of trophies – nothing compared to winning Australian Idol in 2006.

At 30 years of age, he was the oldest Australian Idol winner when he won.

“I hold the title,” he laughs.

Now at the age of 50, Damien’s an accomplished singer/songwriter who’s recorded multiple platinum-selling albums (and performed with Sharon Corr of The Corrs), authored several books and he’s now working on a secret musical.

All he can disclose is that it’s a prequel to a well-known musical.

Another new project for Damien is learning Gaelic.

“I know words here and there but that’s one of the things that I did miss along the way so I’ve started learning a bit,” he said. I’ve got an app and there’s a guy that I’ve been watching every now and then on Instagram.

“He talks about the origins of different Irish words and it’s very poetic. With the Irish language, all the words mean very poetic things. They don’t just say, ‘hello love’. They’ll say, ‘hello the treasure of my heart.”

Damien still watches Australian Idol occasionally and he credits good luck – perhaps the luck of the Irish – that he landed on his feet after his talent show win.

“It’s definitely been a lot of hard work but there have been some uncanny things that have happened along the way,” he said.

“A prime example was the Roy Orbison stuff that I’ve done. When I was on Idol, the public chose for me Crying by Roy Orbison. Now I hadn’t chosen that at all and I don’t even know if I would have done the song on the show.

“Then that opened the door to getting a call from Barbara Orbison to record an album of his songs with her because she saw that performance. They’re all just little steps that, for whatever reason, have gone my way.”

Damien Leith plays at Goulburn Performing Arts Centre on Friday 10 April. Bookings: (02) 4823 4999