 His grandmother, Delia Murphy, wrote, recorded and popularised many Irish songs in the 1930s and 1940s.Musicians such as Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy and Denis Murphy were regular visitors to Browne's family home over the years.He began playing the pipes at the age of seven, his main influences being pipers Willie Clancy, Johnny Doran and Séamus Ennis, and fiddlers Denis Murphy and Tommy Potts.