Maxi (singer)
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Maxi (born 23 February 1950) is an Irish radio disc-jockey and producer; actor, journalist, and singer. Her real name is Irene McCoubrey. She was nicknamed Maxi in school because of the McC letters in her name. She came to fame as part of the popular girl band, Maxi, Dick and Twink, in Ireland in the late 1960s.
She grew up in Dublin's Harold's Cross. At school she sang in the Little Dublin Singers before joining the Young Dublin Singers. It was in that choir that she was teamed with Barbara Dixon and Adele King - Dick and Twink respectively. The trio toured Ireland, UK and Canada and recorded two 45 records . They also worked a session singers in Motown studios Detroit before disbanding.
Maxi pursued a career with Danny Doyle and Music Box before going solo. She represented Ireland twice in the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest singing Do I Dream, and again in 1981 with Sheeba and their entry Horoscopes.
During her singing days she was under contract to the Holiday Inn group of hotels in Canada and the USA as well as headlining her own shows in such far-flung shores as Florida and Greece.
In the late 1970s Maxi became part of the all-girl trio Sheeba, with Marion Fossett and Frances Campbell. After making several records, appearing all over Ireland and Europe, the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest, Sheeba's career came to abrupt halt following an horrific road accident in 1982 in Mayo in the West of Ireland.
Despite a short tour of Japan in 1983, the group realised they could no longer tour. The group broke up. Maxi embarked on a career in broadcasting with the Irish national broadcaster RTE. Working mainly on radio, she also took on some television work including a quiz show, presenting Ireland's lottery and fronting the Miss Ireland contest.
As an actor, she has performed in Dublin's Abbey Theatre and The Opera House in Cork. As a journalist, her favourite interviewees include Roger Moore, Bianca Jagger, Paul Young, Gerry Adams, Louis Walsh, Jose Carreras and Gene Pitney.
Maxi was appointed special representative for UNICEF Ireland, and one of her first public engagements was to highlight the situation is on several disaster fronts, particularly in sub-Sahara Africa.
Attending the fifth annual UNICEF International Mother's Day Lunch held in Dublin, she appealed movingly with heart-rending stories of the deprivation and disasters facing the people in Aids-ravaged Zambia, where she spent two weeks.
In 2006 she continued to work as the early morning presenter on Risin' Time on RTE Radio 1.
