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Moya Brennan, the lead singer of Irish folk group Clannad, has died aged 73.
In her later years, Brennan had been living with pulmonary fibrosis and faced the possibility of a double lung transplant. A statement from her family said she died peacefully in the company of loved ones in her native County Donegal.
Forming in 1970, Clannad was credited with the contemporisation of Celtic music. Brennan drew praise from artists including Bono of U2, with whom she would later duet, and the Grammy and Emmy-winning singer and harpist appeared on the soundtracks to major films including Titanic and King Arthur.
Máire Philomena Ní Bhraonáin was born on 4 August 1952 in Dublin, the eldest of nine children. It was a musical family: the siblings would sing to packed crowds in the family’s pub – despite local belief that no one wanted to see music in such venues – and Brennan pursued her musical education at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin.
Clannad was formed by Brennan, her brothers Pól and Ciarán along with their mother’s twin brothers, Noel and Pádraig Ó Dúgáin. Having been raised on a combination of traditional folk melody and the pop harmonies of acts such as the Beach Boys, they made their live debut at the Slógadh Youth Festival in 1970 and won the festival’s prize, which included a record contract with Polydor that the band members were too young to sign.
Clannad made their name on their defiant embrace of the Irish language. “They regarded it as a poor man’s language,” Brennan told the Irish News in 2022. Singing in it “was like we were letting them down in some way, but we fell in love with Gaelic melodies and Irish was my first language.”
Their commercial breakout came in 1983 with the release of their seventh album, Magical Ring, and its hit single Theme from Harry’s Game, the soundtrack to a television drama about the Troubles. It reached No 5 in the UK Top 40 and made them the first act to perform in Irish on Top of the Pops. Its success led to them soundtracking the 1984 ITV series Robin of Sherwood, which in turn made them the first Irish band to win a Bafta.
Their lineup would shift over the decades: Brennan’s sister Eithne Ní Bhraonáin played with the group in the early 80s, before leaving to pursue a monumentally successful solo career as Enya; meanwhile Brennan became known as the “first lady of Celtic music”. Their combined careers made them Ireland’s most commercially popular musical family.
In her later years, Brennan was open about the toll that travelling to England for an abortion in 1972 had taken on her. She started using alcohol, cannabis and cocaine, and from 1985 had an 18-month marriage to Pat Farrell, a fellow musician. In 1987, she experienced a miscarriage, and found God. That year, she also had a short relationship with Adam Clayton of U2, before she met British photographer Tim Jarvis, who she married in 1990, an event that she said curtailed her drug use for good.
Brennan released an acclaimed solo album, Máire, in 1992, the start of a solo career that would last until 2024, when she released the album Voices & Harps IV with Cormac de Barra. She also became known for her philanthropy, working with Christian Blind Mission Ireland in countries including the DRC, Rwanda, Brazil and Tanzania. She also worked to benefit those affected by drug and alcohol dependency.
In 2002 she started officially using the name Moya Brennan, rather than Máire Philomena Ní Bhraonáin, and in 2009 changed her name by deed poll.
Over the course of her career, she collaborated with artists including Shane MacGowan, Robert Plant, Bruce Hornsby, the Doobie Brothers and Ronan Keating.
Brennan is survived by Jarvis and their two children. In 2022, she credited her Christian faith with helping her endure, including performing through her lung condition. “I know God is with me, it’s when we are doing things by ourselves, that’s when we feel the stress. I’m not saying I’ve got it perfect, we all fall but really that’s where my strength comes from.”
