Juliet back to the Waterfront after finishing her exams

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It seems that in these unforgiving ecomonic times, with platinum-selling albums and gigs backing the likes of Bob Dylan, U2 and Bryan Adams, even a successful twelve-year career in the music industry doesnt mean you shouldnt finish your schooling for 'something to fall back on.'

Juliet Turner, the award winning singer-songwriter from County Tyrone, is at her Dublin home after a weekend in Limerick. She was down there, she tells the Weekender, for the yearly Limerick festival, to watch Declan O'Rourke, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, and for a few days to 'chill.'

And now she engages in the 'wait' - that fearful process known to students up and down the island. Juliet has just virtually completed her degree in Cinical Speech and Language studies at Trinity College, and is expecting the results in days. And, in what seems surprising to the majority of us that live outside the otherwordly existence of the showbusiness world, she will be looking for work in her chosen profession as a compliment to her recording and gigging.

She told the Chronicle: "I was quite tired of touring. I've been playing gigs ever since I was 21, since the 'Lets hear it for Pizza' album of 1996. It was seeming like a constant existence of being on the road, and not having any kind of a home life. It was feeling like a grind."

Juliet began her degree before her first album in the mid-nineties, and left it to be with her family, and to focus on a potential career in music. Yet a desire to complete her studies remained in the back of her mind.

And to the suggestion that her course is 'something to fall back on,' she says: "It's something that people keep saying, but in truth, neither of these careers are something you 'can fall back on.'

"In terms of Speech Therapy, even now, there are so few jobs out there. The way I look at it is that both interests, both the music and the clinical speech studies, are both complimentary - they are both deeply concerned with communication, and making a connection.

"At times the degree was quite overwhelming, with so many subjects coming together, from linguistics and phonetics, to psychology, psychiatry, anatomy, neurology, and physiology. People tend to think speech is language, but its not as simple as that. Its fascinating, but Ive come out the end of the course feeling that Ive been hit about the head, there has been so much to know."

Juliets first album 'Lets Hear it for Pizza' was released in 1996, followed by 'Burn the Black Suit' released on her own label. This album went double platinum in Ireland, and was voted one of the top 100 Irish albums of all time by HotPress Magazine readers. In 2004, Turner released 'Season of the Hurricane' which went gold in Ireland, followed by a live album 'Juliet Turner Live from the Spirit Store' in 2006. Her latest release, 2008s 'People have Names' garnered great critical acclaim, and was described by the Irish Times as 'a gloriously taut collection of songs,' and by the Belfast Telegraph as 'the album of her life.'

On the matter of language, from the start Juliet was noted for her use of native accent in her delivery. Why does she think more people dont sing with their accents?

Read the full report in this week's Chronicle.