{"id":397540,"date":"2026-04-14T07:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/397540\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T07:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:17:08","slug":"clannad-singer-and-harpist-moya-brennan-dies-in-co-donegal-aged-73-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/397540\/","title":{"rendered":"Clannad singer and harpist Moya Brennan dies in Co Donegal, aged 73 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Musician Moya Brennan has died in Co Donegal, aged 73. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A family statement said the singer, harpist and songwriter best known for her work with Clannad, died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Moya (ne\u00e9 M\u00e1ire N\u00ed Bhraonain) was the eldest of nine children of Leo and M\u00e1ire (Baba) Brennan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She, along with her siblings Ciar\u00e1n, P\u00f3l, Deirdre, Leon, Enya, Olive, Bartley and Br\u00edd\u00edn, grew up in the Gaoth Dobhair Gaeltacht in northwest Donegal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She and three family members formed Clannad in the 1970s, initially performing mostly in the family pub, Leo\u2019s Tavern. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">After winning the Letterkenny Folk Festival in 1973, they embarked on a busy touring schedule \u2013 finding initial success in Europe, especially Germany. Their music was a blend of Irish traditional songs from Donegal and contemporary influences such as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Mamas &amp; The Papas and Joni Mitchell. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Their hits included The Theme from Harry\u2019s Game, which they performed on Top Of The Pops. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Clannad perform their farewell Dublin concert at the 3Arena in February 2023. Photograph: Tom Honan \" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/RM2LANKUYFBBLDHWQFQV4VKUFU.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Clannad perform their farewell Dublin concert at the 3Arena in February 2023. Photograph: Tom Honan  <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">This success was followed by their musical scoring for the highly successful Robin of Sherwood TV series. and an international recording and touring career followed, spawning 19 albums and many awards, notably Ivor Novello (1982), Bafta (1984) and a Grammy (1999) along with Irish Meteor and BBC Folk Lifetime Achievement awards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brennan went on to enjoy a hugely successful solo career. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She was awarded an Emmy in 2011 for the US PBS documentary Music of Ireland, and an RT\u00c9 Radio 1 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement in 2019, presented to her by president Michael D Higgins, who said  \u201cher name would be forever etched in the history of Irish music\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Clannad performed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/music\/review\/2023\/02\/19\/clannads-farewell-show-a-fitting-end-full-poise-precision-and-timeless-beauty\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/music\/review\/2023\/02\/19\/clannads-farewell-show-a-fitting-end-full-poise-precision-and-timeless-beauty\/\">their farewell Dublin concert in 2023, the 50th anniversary of the release of their debut album.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brennan is survived by her husband Tim Jarvis, daughter Aisling and son Paul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Musician Moya Brennan has died in Co Donegal, aged 73. A family statement said the singer, harpist and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16148,1485,93,61,60,175773],"class_list":{"0":"post-397540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-clannad","9":"tag-donegal","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-moya-brennan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}