Ray O’Hara thought he knew what a day behind the wheel looked like. Then Michael Jackson climbed into the back of his car.
“The first few days I was in shock. I kept looking in the mirror to be sure the guy in the back really was Michael Jackson,” Ray later told RTÉ Radio 1.
Ray was a local taxi driver, originally from Artane in Dublin and living in Moate, County Westmeath. In 2006 Michael and his three children, Prince (9), Paris (8) and Blanket (4, who goes by Bigi now), spent about six months in Westmeath while Michael worked on music at a local recording studio.
Michael didn’t bring a driver of his own to Ireland. He didn’t have a security team there either. So Ray was asked to drive the family, and he ended up taking them around in a borrowed people carrier with blacked-out windows.
“There was no security with him for the paparazzi. He didn’t have any entourage with him at all,” Ray told the Dublin People newspaper in 2011.
You can hear Ray tell it himself in this long interview, about 15 minutes of him talking about his famous passenger.
Ray O’Hara remembers driving Michael
Michael wasn’t in Ireland for a quick holiday. “Michael came here to live,” Ray has said. That meant finding a house, and a lot of Ray’s driving turned into house hunting.
“I brought Michael Jackson to view properties around the country, mainly in Westmeath and around North Dublin,” he said. “He spent a lot of time just looking at properties around the place.”
You’d expect one of the most famous men on earth to turn up at a viewing with advisers and a line of cars. Michael turned up with his kids.
“If he was looking at a property he would make a family picnic out of the day,” Ray said.
The children came along every time. Apart from Michael, the only people riding in that van were the three kids, their nanny and their tutor. So a day of looking at houses became a family day out in the Irish countryside, picnic and all.
This Guardian video takes you to the Westmeath place where Michael stayed that year.
Michael’s hideaway in the Irish countryside
Ray saw a dad who kept things normal. “He didn’t spoil the kids rotten. They did their schooling,” he said.
Weekends had their own routine. “On Saturday he would bring the kids to the cinema or KFC or a kids’ activity centre.”
Ray treated Michael like any other fare, too. “And I didn’t charge Michael Jackson anything extra. Just the usual daily rate I would any customer,” he told RTÉ.
His memories of those months meant enough to listeners that in 2013 RTÉ Radio 1 made a whole documentary about him, “Michael Jackson’s Irish Driver,” produced by Ken Sweeney.
For a look at Michael himself in Ireland that year, this fan upload has footage of him in the studio there in 2006.
Michael in the studio in Ireland, 2006
Michael never did buy a house in Ireland. He left at the end of 2006, and he told Ray he was coming back.
Ray’s own verdict on his famous passenger is short and sweet. “The man was lovely.”