Turner grew up in the port town of Wexford, where his mother ran a retail outlet that sold recorded music, and led her own band.

A classically trained musician, by the age of seven he was a member of a traditional Irish tin-whistle group, and at eight, he was playing in a brass and reed orchestra.

[citation needed] Turner embarked on what he called his Parlour Tour, performing in over seventy private houses in Ireland, accompanied by London-based Wicklow film maker Colin Murnane who was making the documentary The Song for the Year (2007).

[citation needed] Other songs by Turner were featured in the film Snakes and Ladders and the HBO TV show The Wire (his version of "Dirty Old Town").

[citation needed] In 2005, "Wicklow Hills" was voted among the top twenty-five Irish songs of all time by Today FM in a nationwide poll.