“Most musicians meet other band members in school or college or a rehearsal room,” says Andrea Corr. “I met mine around the breakfast table and in the queue for the bathroom.”

The Corrs are Ireland’s first family of music, a multi-million selling sibling quartet who have conquered the world with a seamless blend of sleek pop rock, lush harmonies and Celtic folk trimmings. Comprising Andrea (lead vocals, piano, tin whistle), Sharon (violin, piano, vocals), Caroline (drums, piano, vocals) and Jim (guitar, keyboards, vocals), The Corrs have sold over 40 million albums since their debut Forgiven Not Forgotten in 1995, spawning a dozen classic hit singles. The Best of The Corrs has already notched up over five million sales and will be re-released on December 1st in a special version containing three brand new covers of Fleetwood Mac classics composed by the late great Christine McVie: Little Lies, Everywhere and Songbird.

The Corrs formed as a band in 1990 in the first roar of the Celtic tiger. They grew up in Dundalk, County Lough (in the Republic of Ireland, close to the border of Northern Ireland). Their parents, Gerry and Jean, sang semi-professionally as a duo, and all four children learned piano. Their aunt owned a pub, where they would join in sessions of traditional songs. Eldest sibling Jim (born 1964) was the first to forge a career as a professional musician. Jim persuaded his three younger sisters to accompany him to auditions for Alan Parker’s seminal Dublin music movie The Commitments. They all landed small parts and the film’s musical co-ordinator, John Hughes, was so impressed he asked to manage them. “We started when we were very young,” says Sharon (second eldest, born 1970). “Caroline and Andrea were still at school when we were making our first album. We left home as a family and went all over the world on an incredible journey.”

Their roles in the band came about naturally, according to Andrea (the youngest, born 1974). “I would sit in a chair and sing along with records and just become the person in the songs. It was never a question of who would be the lead singer? It was always me, and I’m so grateful, it’s the right job for me.” Jim led the band (by virtue of age and experience) only until his sisters had worked out the music business for themselves. “Which took about five minutes,” he comments. “Now there’s four people steering, so it can be a little wayward at times.” "We have different strengths that we will look to each other for," according to Caroline (born 1973). "Jim is the eldest but he is outnumbered by the rest of us."

They got their big break on a trip to New York in 1994, when they gatecrashed a Michael Jackson recording session at the Hit Factory to meet producer and arranger David Foster. “It was because of that day, when we just walked in and asked him to listen to our demos, that we were signed,” says Andrea. “He was amazing, and very generous, and gave Jim a co-production credit cos he recognised all the work we had already done.” Foster produced Runaway, their first single. “Runaway is always quite emotional to sing. Just because it was the beginning, the first song of ours we heard on the radio. Every time we play it, I kind of go back to being 21. I can picture Caroline playing it on the piano and me singing it in Jim’s bedroom in Dundalk. You have all those flashback moments while you’re on stage. And with everybody in the audience singing every word back, it never fails to be emotional to me.”

Their follow up 1997 album, Talk On Corners, was a slow growing success, debuting in the UK at number 7 and finally peaking at number one in June, 1998, it’s 35th week on the charts. Once established, The Corrs became a chart fixture. “We’ve benefited from working with the best producers in the world,” says Andrea, including Glenn Ballard (Alanis Morisette, Michael Jackson), Rick Nowels (Madonna, Stevie Nicks), Mitchell Froom (Crowded House, Paul McCartney), T Bone Burnett (Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss) and Mutt Lange (Def Leppard, Celine Dion). Breathless - a single The Corrs wrote and recorded with Lange - gave them their first number one in 2000. “Breathless was just kind of an assault in a way, you could not escape it.” Accompanying album, In Blue, went straight to number one in 17 countries, and platinum in America.

There have been extraordinary highs in the Corrs career. Andrea singles out playing for Nelson Mandela four times, performing at his 86th birthday at his personal request. “That he was imprisoned and treated so inhumanely but came out loving mankind, it’s awe inspiring to me. To play for him was a privilege and was so warm, with the most beautiful smile. I remember playing The Joy Of Life, a traditional song, and he got up and danced to it. And then one night, we had the fortune to be with him and Peter Gabriel and Annie Lennox at his reserve in South Africa, sitting out under the stars, listening to him tell us stories. He was just such a beautiful human being.”

The Corrs also played for Queen Elizabeth II at her Jubilee in 2002. The Irish siblings were made honorary Member of the British Empire in 2005, in recognition of their considerable charity work, which began following the devastating tragedy of the Omagh bombing that killed 29 people and injured hundreds more in Northern Ireland in 1998. “We were so horrified,“ Andrea recalls. “I remember we were about to go on a morning TV show, and we just couldn’t do it, and they were very understanding. But we decided this just can’t go away and not be faced.” The Corrs helped organise a charity concert with U2, Sinead O’Connor, Van Morrison, Boyzone and Enya in support of victims, and have remained active in philanthropic endeavours ever since. They performed a spinetingling acoustic version of REM’s Everybody Hurts on an Irish Late Late Show TV special. “Bob Geldof was kind of raging, cause that’s Bob’s way, and there was one man in the audience, he’d lost his daughter, and he said ‘that’s the kind of vengeful chatter that has us here in the first place’,” Andrea recalls. “It was quite a moment. It really brought something home, that it was a privilege to be able to help in some way to shine a light on injustices. Because it continues, we see it in this moment, it’s so horrific and frightening, and then we get on stages to play, and there’s nothing but love in the room. You know, that is really who we are. And this is how we feel, for people of all races and colours and creeds. When you are playing music in a room, the love is such a contrast to what we see on the news. It’s really a blessing to able to go out and see love and share love.”

The Corrs 2005 album, Home, was dedicated to their mother, and focussed on traditional Irish songs. “Irish music has a huge effect, all over the world, even in places where there’s not a morsel of Irish blood in the culture. It runs deep.”

The Corrs took a hiatus after Home, to concentrate on raising families of their own. By early 2015, they had quietly resumed writing sessions together when their father, Gerry, suddenly fell ill. They rushed to Ireland to be by his side when he died, aged 82. The first time the siblings performed in ten years was at their father’s funeral in their native Dundalk. “That was hard, but it was the right thing to do,” says Andrea.

They returned to action with huge global tours in a period that has seen them release two of their most mature albums, White Light (2015) and the T Bone Burnett produced Jupiter Calling (2017).

This year they have been touring South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Best of The Corrs is released on December 1st, in a 21-track limited edition gold vinyl format and expanded 2CD collection. “I love the journey of this record, its our life in music,” says Andrea. “I don’t know what the next chapter is, because we fly by the seat of our pants, but we trust in the music.”