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Enya info & bio

Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (born 17 May 1961; anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan) known mononymously as Enya, is an Irish singer and composer. With an estimated equivalent of over 90 million album sales worldwide, Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist, and the second-best-selling music act from Ireland overall, after the rock band U2. Her music has been widely recognised 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. She 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. Over the following four years, Enya further developed her sound by combining multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements from a variety of musical genres, such as Celtic, classical, church, jazz, hip-hop, ambient, world, and Irish folk. Her earliest solo releases were two piano/synthesiser instrumentals for the Touch Travel T4 cassette compilation (1984) composed around 1982–83. The majority of the soundtrack for The Frog Prince (1985) was originally composed by Enya, and she sang two songs with lyrics for the project. Enya had also composed a body of work for a documentary series by the BBC named The Celts. A selection of Enya's pieces for The Celts were released as her self-titled debut album (1986) with the documentary and BBC Records releases in 1987.

The chairman of Warner Music at the time, Rob Dickins, enjoyed listening to Enya's music for The Celts and signed her with Warner Music UK. The initial record deal granted her considerable artistic freedom and minimal interference. The success of her second studio album, Watermark (1988), propelled Enya to worldwide fame, primarily through her international hit single "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)". In the following decade and up to the new millennium, she released the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of A Day Without Rain and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Her subsequent releases included Amarantine (2005), And Winter Came... (2008) and Dark Sky Island (2015).

"Boadicea", a track from her self-titled album, appeared in the soundtrack of Stephen King's 1992 horror film Sleepwalkers and was sampled in several hit songs, including "Ready or Not" (1996) by Fugees and "I Don't Wanna Know" (2004) featuring Mario Winans, which became the second Number 1 single featuring Enya, in the UK charts. The song continues to be sampled almost 4 decades since its first release.

Enya's accolades include four Grammy Awards, 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's Classic Irish Album award, with her 1988 breakthrough album Watermark. Enya wrote a speech read on her behalf, notably thanking the new generation of listeners to her music.