One of my favorite singers is gone.
Moya Brennan, solo artist and former frontwoman of legendary family band Clannad, died at her County Donegal home on April 13. She had been successfully managing pulmonary fibrosis for about nine years, and had last toured in 2024.
I’ve always thought of Ms. Brennan as “Maire,” her birth name – and stage name, until she legally changed it to “Moya” in 2009. “Moya” is an approximate pronunciation of the Celtic “Maire.”
In 1984, U2 introduced me to Clannad – and in turn, to Maire. U2 had been playing Clannad’s “Theme To Harry’s Game” in their pre-show music during the War tour, a phenomenon captured in the breakthrough concert film Live At Red Rocks. Like many young people at the time, I was enthralled by Red Rocks on television, and on VHS. And during the film’s opening segment, this ethereal music was playing through a Colorado rainstorm that had threatened to cancel the performance.
I’d never heard anything like it, and I’d never head anything like Maire Brennan’s voice before. What is this? I wondered. I found the answer in the film’s credits: Clannad. My fascination for the band began, and I eventually discovered that 1982’s “Theme To Harry’s Game” was from a British TV series involving the IRA.
Living in the suburbs of Western Washington State, I was the only Clannad fan that I knew. It was like secret knowledge, gleaned from trips to Tower Records. No one else in school had even heard of them – until a year later, when I was 17. Maire’s gorgeous duet with Bono, “In A Lifetime,” was all over MTV and the radio. I was vindicated!
Yet, Clannad never became global stars with “In A Lifetime” or inclusion in such film soundtracks as “Last Of The Mohicans” and “Patriot Games.” Maire’s younger sister did, however. Enya – with a slightly more “pop” approach to traditional Celtic music – became a household name, while Clannad remained a relatively obscure act beyond UK shores. I was a bit miffed at that; still am.
I was working a weekly music column for a Seattle newspaper in the fall of 1999 when I received word that Maire Brennan would be playing in town soon – in a smallish venue that holds a few hundred people.
What? Maire Brennan of Clannad? Here? In a club? I was stunned. But not too stunned to interview Ms. Brennan via phone a few days later. She was incredible – warm, vivacious, kind. And that Irish accent had me shamelessly – and hopefully subtly – kinda flirting with her. I did tell Maire about how I “found” her, all those years earlier, while desperately trying not to sound like Chris Farley interviewing McCartney. We talked for a long time, and every once in a while “Harry’s Game” played in my head as we spoke. What a surreal experience. (I have since lost the tape, to my great chagrin, but still have the newspaper; I’ll have to dig it out my archives to share).
Moreover, I met Maire Brennan, briefly, after the show. She was as lovely as her voice, as her music. I think that’s the best and most accurate thing to say about her, in the hours and years following her passing.
