Artist Bio:
Clannad has enjoyed one of the longest careers in Irish music. With its trademark fusion of harp-led instrumentals, richly harmonized Gaelic-language vocals frisked up with slight jazzy tinge, this family business long predated the Corrs and is still a going concern.
Music teacher Máire Duggan and bandleader Leo Brennan had a large family: Máire (aka Moya), Leon, Ciarán, Deirdre, Pól, Olive, Eithne (aka Enya), Bartley and Brídín. The home atmosphere was obviously supportive of musical endeavors and as the children grew they were encouraged to try out new ideas before indulgent audiences at their father's pub. The group Clannad dates from around 1970, when the family won a talent contest in Letterkenny. The original lineup consisted of Máire (vocals, harp, keyboards,) her two brothers Ciarán (vocals, bass, guitar, piano, synth) and Pól (tin whistles, flute, vocals—he is now a producer) and their identical twin uncles, Noel (guitar) and Padraig Duggan (mandolin, harmonica, acoustic guitar). A younger sister, Eithne, sat in briefly but later achieved fame as the New Age star Enya. It was hard to find an audience for their music in Ireland, as people were still not accustomed to hearing songs performed in Irish. Nonetheless, the band stuck to its vision. Clannad's now-legendary early acoustic recordings, including its eponymous 1973 debut, were financed by whoever would spring for studio time. The genesis of the band's second release was typical: Gael-Linn distributed it but the project was actually financed by a sewage company.
Realizing that hometown listeners were not quite ready for the band's sound, Clannad decided to hit the road. Continental Europe beckoned and proved hospitable, and Clannad eventually developed a solid fan base. When mega-stardom finally caught up with Clannad during the '80s, it brought vindication but also personnel changes amid tales of acrimony, growth and compromises. "Harry's Game," a theme composed in 1982 for a television show, was subsequently used in the soundtrack to the movie Patriot Games and also turned up in Volkswagen advertisement 10 years later. This was Clannad's first worldwide hit and established the group as a force to be reckoned with in the United States. Another important single was "In a Lifetime" (1985), a duet between Máire and Bono of the Irish rock band U2, from the electronically embellished album Macalla. Another success was "I Will Find You" from the score to the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans.
Banba (1993) once again saw Clannad charting on the U.K. charts and marked the band's 20th anniversary. On the best-selling album Lore (1996,) Noel Duggan's "Trail Of Tears" compared the plight of Native Americans to that of the Irish, who were also treated like a disposable indigenous people in their own land. He was also acknowledging the fact that despite their own poverty, various tribes, notably the Chocktaws, were among the few Americans to send relief donations to Ireland during the calamitous mid-18th-century famine. Clannad finally won a Grammy in 1999 for Landmarks (1998). This album was a return to the band's Donegal roots and was shaped by the land-and-seascapes familiar to the musicians since birth. A 2003 best-of album, In a Lifetime, is one of the band's best-selling titles.
These days, the band's members, while still closely united, are also busy with individual endeavors. Máire, now known as Moya, continues to record as a solo artist. She published a courageous autobiography, The Other Side of the Rainbow, in 2000, in which she confesses her past problems with drugs and subsequent religious conversion and happiness in her second marriage and as the mother of two children. She had also put out a few Christian-themed releases. Ciarán and Pól are both active as producers and, of course, Enya's albums are mega-platinum sellers worldwide. Their mother sings with a local Catholic choir, Cór Mhuire Doire Beaga, where her husband, Leo, and their children periodically join her. Leo's Pub is still an important fixture in the community's cultural and social life and is helping to train another generation of young musicians. —Christina Roden
