Strabane’s newest singing star goes viral

IF there’s one thing that children like to do it’s sing; grabbing a hairbrush in their bedroom and pretending to be their favourite singer.

However one young Strabane girl took to her room last Friday night to record a song which has blasted through the million views mark on social media, going viral in less than a week.

Katelyn Devine, youngest daughter of local country singer Jim Devine and wife Orla, recorded her own version of Yazoo’s ‘80s classic ‘Only You’ after hearing it on TV.

Pleading with dad Jim to upload the video to his Facebook page, the video later spread like wildfire and, by Wednesday afternoon, had shattered the million views threshold with 6,464 shares across Facebook.

Speaking to the Chronicle, Jim remarked, “Katelyn had heard the song on the McDonald’s adverts over Christmas and she really loved it, constantly singing it all over the house, and she decided to try her own version of it. After recording the song, Caitlin showed it to the family and we were all so proud of her version and she asked me to put the video online. We couldn’t believe just how fast the video took hold, with so many views and comments coming in from all over the world. We’ve seen comments from America, South Africa and Brazil as well has many other places – its wonderful.”

The youngest of three, Katelyn and her sisters are all keen entertainers, with Katelyn being a member of both Class Act Theatre Group and Encore Performing Arts Academy in the town; it’s fair to say that they taking after their father in the performing stakes.

Jim continued, “The girls have been brought up with music around the house so it’s something they really enjoy. Between her performing, playing for Sion Swifts and now this, Katelyn’s confidence has taken an amazing boost. I took her to school on Monday morning and people were stopping her to say how much they loved the video. I put up a similar video of her elder sister Ella (11) when she was eight which got a good amount of views although not as many as her sister; it’s led to a bit of sibling rivalry to be honest.”

Following the video success, Jim and wife Orla are ‘over the moon’ that Katelyn has received so much attention for her superb singing, with Jim admitting that the feat was achieved without her ever taking a single lesson.

“Katelyn’s singing is incredible for someone who has never had any formal lessons. I’m not one of those pushy parents who tries to get their children to follow in their footsteps, but I think we’re going to have to get her some lessons after this,” he added.