“It’s your personality that colours your appearance. I think that’s how you really grab someone, it’s not just about being a face.”
In it for the craic, Michael McCaughley is the fiery-haired, enigmatic, twenty-year-old model who loves his Mum, homemade cheesecake and Christmas carols. First scouted supping a hearty Guinness whilst hanging out with his boys down at a local east-end watering hole, McCaughley is an Irish man of many talents. Highly skilled in the art of the viola, currently in his second year studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, this fresh face of AMCK is currently residing in Paris, where he can mostly be found with his head in books or sitting by the Seine at night with some ‘potes’ and ‘biere’. All-consumed by making music, reading classical literature and planning his eagerly-anticipated travels around Eastern Europe, this red hot (and haired) lovely is a true gent with a heart of gold. i-D online caught last orders with him, to sit down and discuss just what goes on in that pretty head of his.
You’re studying music in France right now, how is life different in Paris to Ireland? The pain-au-chocolat are definitely better, which is the main thing. After that, I think Paris is such a stylish city, I never really understood it until I started living here, the way the French are all about seeing and being seen, which is totally different from the Irish who are just up for the craic. Plus it’s a totally different pace of life and mix of cultures, obviously.
When did you first discover your love of music? My first teachers definitely inspired me, but I knew I loved playing when I got shivers playing in orchestra for the first time.
What is your favourite instrument to play? My viola because it’s just beautiful. If you don’t know it, don’t tell anyone, but go and listen to Brahms’ Viola Sonata.
You are very close to your mum, what’s the best meal she cooks for you? Actually my dad does most of the cooking now and the BEST thing is homemade fish and chips. It just doesn’t compare to the stuff from the chippy, with my Mum’s Bakewell tart or pavlova or cheesecake or anything else that she bakes to finish it off. My Mum is great, she could make something unbelievable from nothing!
What’s the best piece of advice she’s ever given to you? ‘Just enjoy it!’ Pretty much my attitude to everything.
Tell us something about you no-one else knows. Impossible, my best friend Rosa knows it allllll. Sorry!
If you could watch any artist perform dead or alive who would it be and why? Oh too difficult, probably go back and see anyone perform Bach’s ‘Chaconne’ in D minor. Nerdy I know but I love that piece so much!
Favourite books? Ahh, My No. 1 – George Orwell, 1984, everyone has to read this. Practically changed my life! It’s beautiful, so daunting and scary but at the heart it’s just a love story. Brilliant. After that, some Yeats poetry, it can’t be described, you just have to read it.
Who is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever kissed? My Mum… On the cheek of course!
Where was your first ever date? I’d love to say in a private box at the Royal Opera House over a glass of champagne but it was probably in some crappy restaurant, to be sure.
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