By Mike Farragher

A female nurse or construction worker — two common themes in many a pictorial in men’s magazines like Maxim or Stuff. For Woodlawn native Corina Brouder, fantasy is reality. 

Not only is Brouder cultivating a promising career as a pop star, she is also a trained nurse and knows her way around a toolbox. 

“My dad is in construction and we go to jobs with him,” says this 25-year-old beauty, who seduced Ireland last year with a pair of dance singles that landed her in the Top 40. 

“They see us coming to work and they think, ‘Oh, God, here come the women.’ But then they see how we work and they see that they know what we’re doing with a hammer, and the whistling stuff dies down pretty quickly.”

Irish Voice readers have seen Brouder before. She stares at you, draped over a harp with a come hither look, in the Dan Dooley car rental ads. 

“I’m not a model,” she says sheepishly. “They did a spread on me and there’s that one picture with me and a harp. Dooley’s model is ‘any requests,’ so they put it on the ad.”

Brouder, whose father hails from Limerick, has achieved career momentum by being at the right place at the right time. One fateful night, not mindful of the time difference between New York and Ireland, she called Louis Walsh, the impresario who launched the careers of Westlife, Boyzone, and Samantha Mumba. 

“Louis Walsh picked up the phone himself,” she recalls. “I guess he works really late at night. He gave me some pointers and told me where to go to promote myself in Ireland. He was great.”

Walsh’s penchant for pairing beauty and talent is renowned (or notorious, depending on who you talk to), and he advised Corina to launch her career first before finding stardom for her family’s band. 

Local music fans might remember Corina , who still jams with her siblings in the group Spirits of Gilbride. The traditional fiddling is a long way from the slick dance beats on the infectious single “Another Day,” a ditty that will get your rump shaking and hips wiggling in the clubs.

“I started playing fiddles and what not,” she explains. “Then you met different producers who have a different vision and you just go for it.”

Corina says that she is still trying to straddle the genres of pop and trad to find her sound. It should be fun watching her find her groove. For more information, log onto www.corinabrouder.net.