Bill Whelan, is an Irish composer and musician. He is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, Riverdance, was a seven-minute display of traditional Irish dancing that became a full-length stage production and spawned a worldwide craze for Irish dancing and celtic music. It was released as a single in the UK in 1994, credited to "Bill Whelan and An�na featuring the RT� Concert Orchestra". It reached number 9 and stayed in the charts for 16 weeks. The album of the same title reached number 31 in the album charts in 1995. Whelan has also composed a symphonic suite version of Riverdance and it had its premiere, performed by the Ulster Orchestra on BBC Radio 3 in August 2014. 

May 22nd, 1950 in Limerick (Age 74)