People who love and understand music know that Enya is a Goddess on her own right! Enya was the artist chosen to write the song used in The Lord of the Rings. The title of the song is May It Be. She actually travelled to New Zealand where Lord of the Rings was shot to work on the Music. The lyrics of this song is BEYOND Earth!! And she says in her Quenya terms “Mornie Utulie” Enya is a Celtic woman (Irish) and she lives in the Manderley Castle in Dublin with her cats and family. She is a Grammy award-winning singer!! But have chosen to live a very quiet and private life. Enya has noted that she ‘was always quiet, even as a child, so there has always been an air of mystery around me’ also mentioning that ‘at school, they would always say, “oh, we never know what Eithne is thinking or what she will say next.”
Background of Enya
Originally born with the name as Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin on 17 May 1961. Her name was anglicized as Enya Patricia Brennan and known mononymously as Enya. She is the sixth of nine children in the Brennan family of musicians, born to Máire “Baba” and Leopold “Leo” Brennan. Enya is an Irish singer and composer. With an estimated equivalent of over 80 million albums sold worldwide, Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist, and the second-best-selling music act from Ireland overall, after only the rock band U2. Her music has been widely recognized for its use of multi-layers of her own vocals and instrumentation, lengthened reverb, and interwoven elements of Celtic music.
Raised in the Irish-speaking region of Gweedore, Enya began her musical career in 1980 playing alongside her family’s Irish folk band Clannad. From the age of 11, Enya attended a convent boarding school in Milford, Milford College, run by the Sisters of Loreto; Enya’s education there was paid for by her grandfather. The boarding school, now Loreto Community School, was where Enya developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin, and watercolour painting. She said, ‘It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family but it was good for my music.’
Enya finished boarding school at age 17 towards the end of the 1970s, and she spent a year at college studying classical music. She previously saw herself becoming a piano teacher, as both her mother and grandmother had done, and gave piano lessons for a brief time in the early 1980s. This later evolved into composing and performing her own music. Enya states that ‘music was never far from my mind but contrary to popular belief my ambitions were in no way connected to those of my family, as I knew I wanted to have my own career and make my own mark.’
Answering The Call of Her Destiny
Enya left Clannad in 1982 to pursue a solo career, working with the former Clannad manager and producer, Nicky Ryan, and his wife Roma, as their lyricist. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore ‘with no particular definite future’, or live with him and Roma in suburban Artane, Dublin ‘and see what happens, musically’, the latter of which Enya decided was best for her career.
After their bank denied them a loan, Enya reportedly sold her saxophone, which she had been learning to play at the time, and also gave piano lessons as a source of income. Nicky Ryan used what they could afford to build a recording facility in the Ryans’ garden shed, formerly a Scout hut, which they named “Aigle Studio”, after the French word for eagle. They would have breakfast and Enya would head off to the studio. Shortly after leaving Clannad and the family home in Gweedore, Enya lived with the Ryans from 1982, until 1989, when she was able to buy her own penthouse apartment in Killiney. Enya lives in the Manderley Castle in Dublin, Ireland.
Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, “Orinoco Flow“, was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins jokingly asked for a single; he knew that Enya music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the song’s lyrics. “Orinoco Flow” became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks, and is credited with bringing new-age music to the mainstream market in America.
The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent a year traveling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performance. In 1993 Enya won her first Grammy Award in the Best New Age Album category for ShepherdMoons. Enya was offered the opportunity to compose the film score for Titanic but declined as it would be a collaboration, rather than solely her composition and singing.
A recording of her singing “Oíche Chiúin”, an Irish-language version of “Silent Night“, appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997. Her song Only If was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as ‘like a musical diary… each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning… your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking. In 1998, Enya, Roma and Nicky Ryan received the Ivor Novello award for International Achievement. In 2002, Enya released “May It Be” as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live with an orchestra at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Accolades
Enya accolades include four Grammy Awards and six World Music Awards, and she holds the record as the most-nominated female Irish artist at the BRIT Awards, with four nominations. “May It Be“, her composition from the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. In March 2025, Enya received the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Classic Irish Album award, with her 1988 breakthrough album Watermark.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, US sales of the album and its lead single “Only Time” surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as ‘a post-September 11th anthem’. The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi-single containing the original and a pop remix of “Only Time” in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles. Making the song Enya highest charting in US single to date.
One thing I have learned from the life story of Enya as with any other stories I have read is that God has MADE the existence of humans to be symbiotic and that reminds me of the Zulu saying “Ubuntu Ngumuntu Gabantu” meaning a person is a person through another person. If you read through the story of Enya, you will notice that, there will never be any mention of Enya without these names: Nicky Ryan and Roma Ryan.It was this couple that actually took Enya into their house to live with them and sponsored her music career. Helping Enya to launch herself into stardom as a globally recognized and successful singer!
I personally enjoy listening to Enya songs. Her songs are ethereal with the capacity to send you into a very sublime Celestial Realm of Bliss and Elysian. For example: Orinoco Flow, Caribbean Blue, May It Be, Only Time, Ebudae, Adiemus, Wild Child, Only If, Storms in Africa. I am actually interested in adding more of her songs to my music collection. After reading through the journey and life story of Enya I have come to a conclusion that music is her destiny and I can confidently say that before Enya was born, she already had a soul contract with Nicky Ryan and Roma Ryan who would be the channel through which she would be able to fulfill her destiny as a singer. Without Nicky Ryan and Roma Ryan no one could have known the name “Enya.”
Kingsley Osajie 