Salut! Folk

Colin Randall writes: early Clannad were much more to my taste than later Clannad. But as I wrote at my Substack pages, that says more about me than the band. And I never lost my profound respect for Moya Brennan, a fabulous singer and musician. She died last week aged 73 and this is Salut! Folk’s belated appreciation …

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The death of Moya Brennan, whose outstanding qualities as a singer, songwriter and musician embraced far more than her starring rule in Clannad, robs Irish music of one of its most eminent ambassadors.

A wealth of recordings, audio and visual, ensures that the exquisite voice and harp playing that distinguished her art will survive her passing. She was known as the First Lady of Celtic Music and, despite great competition for such a title, was certainly a strong contender.

Moya Brennan’s voice filled the air inside St Patrick’s church in Meenaweal, Co Donegal last Friday (April 17) as mourners at her funeral reflected on a life that gave pleasure to so many.

Moya Brennan with Clannad in Boston, Mass, 1988. Image: Paul R Benoit, the Boston Globe

In a moving eulogy, Fr Brian O’Fearraigh said that with Brennan’s death four days earlier, it seemed as if “a sacred silence had descended”.

“The music stood still and her beautiful harp stood silently in the corner of her room as though keeping its own quite vigil of respect and honour,” he said. “It was as if the silence itself seemed to sing Moya into eternity and home to heaven.”

Moya Brennan grew up in a Gaelic-speaking area of Donegal, the eldest of nine children born to Leo, a cabaret band musician and owner of a smashing bar bearing his name, and Maire, a music teacher.

The Brennans’ sixth child, Eithne, was briefly a member of Clannad. but went on, with her anglicised name Enya, to become a phenomenally successful solo artist whose stunning mix of ethereal vocals, mysticism and technology produced ground-breaking albums that have sold by bucketloads.

Enya was not with Moya on that glorious Clannad track Two Sisters, on the 1976 album Dúlamán which is perhaps just as well as it tells the story of a girl murdered by her jealous sibling.

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In Clannad’s original line-up, Moya (Maire, like her mother, in the Irish form) was joined by brothers Pol and Ciaran and their twin uncles Noel and Padraig.

Enya did spend a short time in the band before embarking on her solo career. On the sumptuous Fuaim album in 1982, she can be heard with Moya on this lovely track, Strayed Away, written by Thom Moore and put to a traditional melody.

Among so many tributes paid to Moya Brennan, I was particularly taken with the words of Ralph McTell:

… Her serious musical talent was complimented by vivaciousness and a great sense of fun. Her warmth and empathy was so plentiful it was always like meeting your favourite cousin or in these later years, for those younger than her, a treasured auntie. She had a gentle grace and kindness not often encountered...

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You can read Ralph’s full tribute by visiting the Salut! Folk Facebook group and scrolling down recent posts.

Briefly back to Leo’s Bar, in Meenaleck, Co Donegal. In the late 1960s, hitchhiking around Northern Ireland and across the border, my then girlfriend Irene and I stopped there one evening. Despite making what may have been an appalling – and uninvited – racket with my impromptu versions of a few Irish songs, Leo allowed us to stay the night and then drove us to Sligo next day,

It is a happy memory, which I described more fully in this article, and even though I cannot remember so long after whether we met Moya or any of her siblings, it is perhaps likely that we did. I mention this again mainly to record a modest example of her family’s kind and welcoming spirit.

And for all my petulant quibbles about the musical direction later Clannad took, I am happy to salute their inventive and exemplary musicianship. Harry’s Game, their theme music for a TV series of the same name, was a pointer to what was to come and I am not – or maybe no longer – narrow-minded enough to deny its haunting quality.

And of course she went on to record solo, join others in fine collaborations and write more of her own songs. Along the way, she applied her own touch to Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now and Big Yellow Taxi). In all this she excelled.

Moya Brennan was an extraordinary and much-loved human being, more widely remembered for the beautiful music she made. As the Scottish singer Eddi Reader posted, also at Facebook: “The angels will be jealous of that voice.”