SHE sailed away from fame when she decided back in 1988 to step back from the spotlight.
One of Ireland’s top musical exports, Enya was earlier this year spotted in public for the first time in eight years at a wedding in Donegal.
Her music has travelled right across the globe, with Enya’s songs just this week played in the background as Taoiseach Micheal Martin was hosted in Japan by the nation’s prime minister.
Caribbean Blue hitmaker Enya has sold over 80 million albums worldwide since her career started in the 1980s.
As Ireland’s best-selling solo artist and one of the world’s most successful female musicians ever, she is said to have a net worth of over €118million.
But the singer, 64, has become notorious for her reclusive lifestyle, spending time in her Victorian castle home.
The Donegal native lives in a €3.8million compound in Killiney, south Dublin, which she bought in 1997.
It’s said she outbid Michael Flatley for the plush gaff, which needed extensive redecorating after the purchase.
It was formerly Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, but renamed Manderley Castle by Enya after the house in the 1938 novel of the same name.
It’s here that she has garnered a reputation as a recluse, although as she told the Independent in 2015, she has “just always been a very independent person”.
She also told the publication: “I am single, yes.
“But as the song (Even In The Shadows) suggests, there have been… relationships.
“It’s quite hard to have someone accept that – well, not that they are second to the music, but that I do need a certain amount of space for it.
“And even though the person will understand that at the beginning, there is something like jealousy towards the music after a while. It’s difficult.”
GOING IT ALONE
Enya has always gone it alone, it seems – well, mostly.
Eithne Ní Bhraonáin grew up as one of nine siblings in Gweedore, Co Donegal.
She was a shy child who loved playing the piano and singing, later explaining how the pandemonium of a large family instilled her lifelong love of being alone and describing silence as a luxury.
At 19 she joined her family’s band, Celtic music group Clannad, on synth and backing vocals.
She left two years later, moving into the Dublin home of
Nicky Ryan, the group’s producer, and his wife Roma.
Following her acrimonious split from Clannad, the three wrote music together, culminating in her 1987 self-titled debut album.
But it was with the release of second LP Watermark the following year that she entered the stratosphere.
Speaking around the release of Watermark, Nicky said Clannad had “sort of settled into a formula that was very boring”.
He added: “I brought Enya into the group, hoping that it would add new textures–and it did.
“But two years later they were back into the same old routine again, and I got bored. We fought about this and eventually split.
“And because I put Enya into the band, I offered to take her out. Six years later, here we are.”
Featuring her best-known track, Orinoco Flow (Sail Away), Watermark shifted 11 million copies worldwide.
Since then the trio have worked closely on a string of albums which have quietly sold by the bucketload.
She has won four Grammys and got an Oscar nod for her work on the Lord Of The Rings soundtrack.
SONG OF HEALING
After the September 11 terror attacks in the US in 2001, Enya’s song Only Time became somewhat of a healing theme song.
Because it had never been released as a single, Enya released it and donated the proceeds to the Uniform Firefighters Association’s Widows’ and Children’s Fund in the wake of one of New York’s darkest days.
She said: “Basically, we got news from people in America who saw footage, where CNN were using the song, Only Time. I was out there promoting it that year.
“And when I saw the footage it was absolutely so moving. But, in a way, I think everybody in the world felt that if there was any way that we could help them in New York, because it was so traumatised. And they felt there was going to be no more normality ever in the city.
“And they leaned toward certain songs and one of them was Only Time because the song is about time will heal.
“Only Time can tell, and this is what their hope was. So, what we did then was we released the single, the single had never been released there, so we released the single, and then gave all the proceeds then to the fire department.”
However, Enya rarely performs live – the last time was in 2016 – and never tours.
MUSIC FIRST
Enya told The Irish Times in a 2015 interview: “From the beginning, with Watermark, the success came with the music.
“People loved enjoying listening to Orinoco Flow and then the album – but they didn’t know if [Enya] was a band; they didn’t know anything… Because the focus was on the music.
“Firstly, I didn’t know that I had to become famous to sell it. There’s no rulebook, so I felt like if I was younger, maybe I would have done things differently.
“But I was 27, I was really excited about the music – and therefore, I asked questions about the interviews and the promotion that I was doing. I’d say, ‘What does this entail? Does it focus on the music? Or is it going to make me more famous?’
“And sometimes, when it was more focused on me, I actually would refuse, because I didn’t feel the necessity. I wasn’t looking for the fame; it was more the success that I enjoyed. I’d do the promotion and I’d enjoy talking about the music – but then it was back to work on another album.
“And it was important to me to retain privacy, because I was kind of worried that fame might interfere with my writing, with my music; that it might have changed what I was working on.
“I was guarding everything really carefully and closely.”
Meanwhile, Enya’s isolated life with her cats has been well-documented.
We previously reported how she also bans herself from listening to other artists’ music and once claimed to have never bought an album — to keep her own work as original as possible.
Her songs are painstakingly put together, often overdubbed with vocals more than 500 times.
They are sung in a bizarre mix of languages.
Initially a mixture of English and Gaelic, she now records in Sindarin and Quenya, both created by author JRR Tolkien, and Loxian — which she invented herself with her songwriters.
Bono is Enya’s closest neighbour in Killiney, fitting that she is Ireland’s second best-selling music act, second only to U2.
She said of the U2 frontman: “He’s a good neighbour for me and everyone. He loves a chat.”
ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
Romance is about as high on Enya’s to-do list as going out, describing music as her “first love and my present love”.
She once said: “After a bad day in the studio I’m dark and difficult to be with, I want and need to be on my own. What sort of man would be able to adapt?
“Falling madly in love and getting married would be the most horrific thing that could happen.
“My affairs are with melody and words and beautiful sounds.
“I had partners. But I find long relationships, well, how can I say it without appearing strange?
“I’m too much devoted to my music. Some people think it sounds sad but believe me, I’m happy. I am my music.”
SECURITY BREACHES
The singer has unfortunately suffered from her fame through a variety of concerning incidents and security breaches down the years.
In 1996, a 31-year-old Italian man, who’d moved to Dublin to be near the singer and was seen wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck, stabbed himself after being thrown out of her parents’ pub in Donegal.
In 2005, there were two separate security breaches at the castle that led the singer to beef up her defences – despite having already spent €250,000 on doing so in 1998.
In August of 2005, a stalking incident saw a man caught in the house after he somehow got past security.
The English man was subsequently arrested by gardai.
Within the space of a week, Enya then had to lock herself in a panic room at her home and hit an alarm after finding another man in the house.
The intruder tied up a maid during the two-hour incident but escaped before gardai arrived.
While he opened a safe, he stole only personal items, leaving behind cash and valuables.
A source told the Evening Herald at the time: “We initially thought it was an aggravated burglary but soon realised that it was a stalking situation.
“Enya is hyper-sensitive about security and the place was already like a fortress so this guy did well to get in.
“Apparently she has hired two security guards to patrol at night while there is also a man there with her at all times and she is very nervous, which is understandable.”
The Irish Examiner later reported that Enya was “uncomfortable” staying home alone after the burglary.
They reported she said: “We still have no clues as to who it was and why he did it.
“I suppose this is the downside of my success, some fans say they’ve got life’s answers from me.
“It makes me slightly uncomfortable, this level of interest in me.”
RECENT SIGHTING
However, it hasn’t all been doom and gloom for the musician.
A snap in May of this year showed the 64-year-old stepping out from her castle in a rare sighting.
The vocalist could be seen smiling as she posed for a picture at a wedding at Drumhalla House in Rathmullan, Co Donegal on May 16.
The Donegal Dancers crew Thomas and Emily Colangelo said in a post on social media that it was a “privilege to have them in the crowd”.
They wrote: “There may be a couple familiar faces in the first pic… Some of you may know them as the world famous Clannad & ENYA.”
Fans were quick to gush over the fresh snap on Reddit, which marked her first real public appearance since the Grammys in 2017 – although she did celebrate her sister Moya Brennan getting an honorary doctorate from DCU in 2022.
One loyal fan said: “Omg, I’m so happy to see her finally”, while another added: “I recognise her outfit from this 2016 performance of Orinoco Flow in Japan edit: and Enya’s live US performance of Echoes in Rain — re-worn very stylishly.”
Fans are still clamouring for more music, with the singer’s last release Dark Sky Island dropping in 2015.
One said: “She looks so lovely here, but girl drop the mixtape already omg it’s been 10 years.”
Enya’s appearance at a Donegal wedding may not be the last fans see of her for another eight years.
HIGHEST HONOUR
In her native county, the Council have proposed giving Enya the Freedom of Donegal.
Former Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council Cllr Niamh Kennedy said the council acknowledged her privacy and didn’t expect a public appearance when it came to accepting the potential Freedom of Donegal.
Cllr Kennedy said: “We are all very proud of her and her family. Despite her immense success, this woman remains a figure of mystery, preferring the solace of her Dublin residence to the spotlight, the privacy adding to her mystique, making her a music refuge for listeners all around the world.
“Marked by multi-million album sales and critical acclaim, reflects her unique ability to create music that transcends borders and speaks to the soul.
“Her album Watermark introduced the world to her signature sound, and A Day Without Rain became a global sensation with Only Time providing solace to many during the 9/11 tragedy, when she donated the songs proceeds to the Fire Department NY families.
“We honour Enya with offering her the Freedom of her home county Donegal. We celebrate not just her music but for her to craft a world of tranquillity and beauty through her art.
“We also acknowledge her privacy and don’t expect her to join us here at the County House to honour her but for her to know that we are so very proud and that she deserves the highest honour that her home county can bestow.”
