Moya Brennan, Clannad Singer, Dies at 73
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- Moya Brennan died peacefully at 73 in her native County Donegal, having lived with pulmonary fibrosis in her later years and faced the prospect of a double lung transplant, her family announced
- Clannad, formed in 1970 by Brennan and four relatives, was credited with contemporising Celtic music and made its commercial breakthrough in 1983 with 'Theme from Harry's Game', which reached No. 5 in the UK and made them the first act to perform in Irish on Top of the Pops
- Brennan drew praise from Bono of U2 — with whom she later duetted — and her harp work appeared on major film soundtracks including Titanic and King Arthur
- Her sister Eithne Ní Bhraonáin played with Clannad in the early 1980s before leaving to pursue a solo career as Enya, making the pair's combined output Ireland's most commercially successful musical family
- Brennan released her solo debut Máire in 1992 and continued recording until 2024's Voices & Harps IV with Cormac de Barra, while collaborating with Shane MacGowan, Robert Plant, Bruce Hornsby, the Doobie Brothers and Ronan Keating
- In her later years Brennan became known for philanthropy with Christian Blind Mission Ireland in the DRC, Rwanda, Brazil and Tanzania, and for work with people affected by drug and alcohol dependency — struggles she had openly discussed, tracing them back to a 1972 abortion in England
- Brennan adopted the name Moya officially in 2002, credited her Christian faith with sustaining her through performing with lung disease, and is survived by her husband Tim Jarvis and their two children
Why it matters: Brennan's death closes a chapter on a family that reshaped how the Irish language was heard in global pop: Clannad were the first Irish-language act on Top of the Pops and the first Irish Bafta-winning band, while sister Enya became one of the best-selling solo artists of all time. The loss is also felt in Ireland's faith-based philanthropy community, where Brennan was a long-standing ambassador for Christian Blind Mission.
