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THE Frank and Walters singer Paul Linehan has revealed how he tracked down the ex-girlfriend who inspired their monster hit After All.

The Cork frontman dated English girl Katy Linfield in the early Nineties but lost ­contact after they split in 1994.

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Katy Linfield

Katy Linfield

However, when producers of TV comedy The Young Offenders decided to use the song in the finale of their first series, Paul decided he wanted to let Katy know.

Paul told The Irish Sun: “I hadn’t heard or seen Katy in 25 years. I wondered was she living in America or Australia?

“I found a person on Twitter with the same name who might have been her. I messaged ‘It’s Paul, do you remember me?’ Of course she did and we ended up texting.”

The former sweethearts later met up before a London concert by The Franks and Walters.

And the singer shared the news with fans that the woman who inspired After All was in the house when it came time to perform their best-known song that night.

Katy told The Irish Sun: “Paul asked my permission if he could point to me in the audience when he dedicated After All to me.

“I was in the middle of hundreds of die-hard Franks fans and the
all looked around at me and were asking ‘is that you?’.

“I’d brought my 16-year-old daughter Tess along for moral ­support and she couldn’t believe the reaction. Everyone going crazy for the song, and asking ‘is this about you?’. It made me feel very special.”

Graphic artist Katy was 24 when she first met Paul at Newcastle’s Riverside venue, where the Frank and Walters opened for Bristol group The Blue Aeroplanes.

Paul recalled: “I thought Katy was stunning and way out of my league. But when she told me she was moving to London the following months, I suggested we meet for a drink.”

Paul and Katy were soon an item as the Cork band took off with the UK music press. But their biggest hit was to come from a tiff between Paul and Katy as he headed back out on another tour without her.

Paul said: “I came back upset about an argument we had and the song After All emerged from that. But the song is a celebration of our love. I was in love with Katy.”

Katy was astonished when her song became the Franks’ biggest hit, climbing to No11 after the group performed on Top Of The Pops.

‘IT WAS A SECRET’

She said: “I didn’t tell anyone After All was about me. It was a secret, really.”

Paul and Katy dated for two years before they split in 1994.

Decades later, Katy now has two daughters and is in a relationship with an artist.

‘I GET EMOTIONAL HEARING IT’

She told us: “I get emotional ­hearing the song. Looking back, it’s nice to think it hadn’t been for ­nothing because Paul had been such a huge relationship in my life.”

Paul, together with partner Katharina Walter for 20 years, added: “As I sing in After All, ‘I know we fight and our loves gets pushed to the side but it ends alright’.”

The Frank and Walters play The Lighthouse, Dun Laoghaire, on July 12.

Paul and Katy tell their story in RTE series Aistear an Amhrain on June 10 at 7pm on RTE 1.

All photos are copyright Katy Linfield -

RTE

The popular song was used in the finale of the first series of The Young Offenders[/caption]

A SICKO who shared child abuse images will be freed from prison this month.

Pervert Kevin Raggett, 22, is one of 14 sex fiends who will walk free in June.

We can reveal he will be released from Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison in two weeks’ time.

Creep Raggett, of Limerick, will walk out of the slammer just eight months after he received a 22-month sentence for possessing and distributing 455 videos and images of kids being abused.

During his time in prison, he has maintained a low profile and is being released early as part of a push to tackle overcrowding.

He has also been ordered to engage with Probation Services when he is back in the community.

Although originally from Limerick, he has yet to inform Gardai of his new address.

If he fails to notify Gardai of his address, he could be charged and returned to prison.

One prison source said: “Raggett is still a young man and kept his head down when he was in prison.

“He didn’t interact much with the other prisoners and didn’t indicate where he might go after his release from prison.”

During Raggett’s trial, the court heard how the images Raggett had possessed were “horrifying”.

Of the 455 videos and images Raggett had, 362 were classified as ‘Category 1’ material and the most horrific.

The sicko sourced the images from the darknet.

Others who are being freed this month include three convicted rapists and one man who was caged for sexual assault.

One of the rapists was previously convicted of raping a young girl.

A number of inmates who were convicted of indecent assault, sexual assault and defilement of a child will also be freed.

Those being freed are from different parts of the country and will be closely monitored.

THERE are some 20,000 undiagnosed cases of the “Celtic Gene” in Ireland.

Formally known as haemochromatosis, or iron overload, it is the most common genetic disorder in the country – yet many people don’t know they have it.

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Barry Cronin

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Early diagnosis is “vital” and, if left untreated, it can lead to organ damage or even ­premature death.

Once diagnosed, ­treatment is simple, with regular removal of blood similar to donating blood.

Here, voluntary chairperson of Irish Haemochromatosis Association, David Beggy, talks about the disorder, which was discovered in Ireland thousands of years ago.

He describes the symptoms to watch out for and explains how you can get checked out for it.

ONE in five of us is a carrier and one in 83 people in Ireland are predisposed to developing haemochromatosis.

Our charity, the Irish Haemochromatosis Association, estimates that there are at least 20,000 undiagnosed cases of haemochromatosis in Ireland, so our mission is to continue to raise awareness of the disorder to get as many people as possible diagnosed and treated.

If haemochromatosis is not diagnosed and treated early, iron overload can lead to organ damage where the liver, heart, pancreas and joints can be affected.

Women and men can equally be at risk of haemochromatosis, but women might present with symptoms later, especially after menopause.

The gene implicated in haemochromatosis was identified as late as 1996.

But the genetic mutation was found in the remains of a Neolithic woman about 5,000 years ago in Ballynahatty in Northern Ireland, and could have been spread through Viking travel routes.

Ireland is a small island nation, so the gene was passed down from generation to generation within families.

LOOK OUT FOR SYMPTOMS

We would always urge people to look out for the early and most common symptoms of haemochromatosis, which can sometimes be non-specific and difficult to diagnose.

They include, chronic fatigue, abdominal pain (non-specific), irregular heartbeat, joint pain – especially in the knuckle and first joint of the first and second fingers – loss of sex drive, and low mood.

If you have a history of haemochromatosis in your family, we encourage people to go to their GP and ask for an iron panel test.

The GP usually recommends a genetic test to rule in or rule out a diagnosis of haemochromatosis if ferritin and/or transferrin saturation levels are raised.

SIMPLE TREATMENT

Treatment for haemochromatosis is the removal of a unit of blood (similar to donating at the blood bank, only more frequent), sometimes every two weeks or until iron levels return to normal.

Once normal iron levels are re-established, they can be maintained by blood removal two to five times per year, depending on the patient and also depending on how high ferritin levels were when first diagnosed.

This phase is known as a maintenance phase.

We also work with the Irish Blood Transfusion Service to promote blood donations from haemochromatosis patients where they are eligible.

EARLY DIAGNOSIS IS VITAL

For more information on how to donate blood and check if you’re eligible, patients can visit www.giveblood.ie, where there is an online questionnaire for people to check if they meet the criteria — or you can call to make an appointment.

Early diagnosis of haemochromatosis is vital.

At the Irish Haemochromatosis Association, we provide support for patients and their families through our helpline, patient information packs and resources, and information events.

We also work closely with the medical community and have recently received much-needed funding from a foundation, The Hospital Saturday Fund, to set up a pilot education and training programme for GP practice nurses who provide venesection treatments for haemochromatosis patients.

PILOT PROGRAMME

The first training pilot programme was delivered in the North-West in March 2025, and we worked with the HSE nurse training and education units to facilitate training for practice nurses across Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Galway and Mayo.

We hope to work with the HSE to roll this out nationally.

We also work closely with our European haemochromatosis patient organisations to educate the public and raise awareness.

And we work with the research and medical community to keep up-to-date with European and international clinical studies that benefit haemochromatosis patients.

RAISING AWARENESS

World Haemochromatosis Awareness Week, which took place last week, was an important event for us.

It gives us the opportunity on a national scale to highlight what haemochromatosis is, how to recognise the symptoms of the disorder and how to get checked and tested for haemochromatosis.

Awareness Week has gone from strength to strength in the past few years and, each year, we reach more people, especially through our charity social media pages.

For more info on what we do, see haemochromatosis.ie or email us on info@haemochromatosis.ie.

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