Maire Brennan

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Moya Brennan
Two-time Grammy nominee, Moya Brennan, is of solo and Clannad fame.
Background information
Birth name	Máire Ní Bhraonáin
Born	August 4, 1952. Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland
Genre(s)	Celtic, folk
Occupation(s)	Musician
Years active	1970 - present

Máire Ní Bhraonáin, better known as Máire Brennan or Moya Brennan (born August 4, 1952, Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland), is a Celtic folk singer. She began her singing career when her family formed the band Clannad in 1970.

Brennan released her first solo album in 1992, Máire, on Atlantic Records. Misty Eyed Adventures on BGM followed three years later. In 1998, Brennan signed with Word Records and released Perfect Time, and Whisper To The Wild Water a year later. The album was nominated in the Grammy Awards of 2001 for Best New Age Album. Her music is usually classified as New Age or Celtic. She accepts the Celtic label, but has at times indicated a slight discomfort with being seen as "New Age" as much of her music is strongly Christian with several of her songs centering on maintaining a relationship with Jesus Christ.[1] Some of her songs show influences from her Catholic upbringing or seem relational due to her own views concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary.[2]

In 2000, she wrote an autobiography called The Other Side of The Rainbow, which was translated into German. Same year she performed her song "Perfect time" live at World Youth Day in Rome in front of crowds of pilgrims and Pope John Paul II. She considered it an honor as she believes in mutual respect among Christians.[3]

Since 2002, she has promoted herself as Moya Brennan — a spelling closely resembling the phonetic pronunciation of her name for those not familiar with the Irish variant of the spelling. Under this moniker she released an album entitled "Two Horizons" in 2003 under her new label, Universal.

She is the eldest sister of the singer Enya, who was also briefly a member of Clannad in the early 1980s.

In the early 1990s she returned to Christianity, but this time to the Pentecostalism of her husband.[4][5] She attends St Marks church in Dublin city centre.[6] It is an Assemblies of God church. Moya Brennan has two children, Aisling and Paul, with her husband Tim Jarvis, a photographer. They live in Dún Laoghaire in Dublin, Ireland. She is also known for her work with the dance artist Chicane for performing the singing for the single "Saltwater," which was also featured in the VisitScotland advertising campaign, as well as having been used by Fáilte Ireland to promote Ireland, and by Belfast city council, both in television adverts.