Breda O'Brien
Moya Brennan’s death saddened many people. Whatever the opposite of having notions is, Moya Brennan epitomised it. She had a God-given talent and used it in service of Him.
After her death, Oliver Callan interviewed Donal Lunny, who collaborated with Clannad and later, Moya Brennan in her solo career.
He said, “She carried it in herself. She had, if you like, a sense of the spiritual in her voice. This always came across in her singing, so that one sensed much greater depths to what she was singing, and what it was about. It carried her all the way.”
Daniel O’Donnell, on the same programme, talked about her earthiness, but also, that she had an aura, a peacefulness to her that was hard to put into words.
Spirituality
It would have been lovely to hear more about that spirituality. Far be it from me to contradict Bono, but in his sincere tribute to her after her death, he said that “she sang like an angel. She walked through this world like an angel, and now she’s back with her own kind.”
I thought I could just have the abortion and get on with my life. Later, I even imagined I’d recovered from it but I hadn’t. In actual fact, I’d started to abuse myself with drink and drugs”
To me, the most beautiful thing about Moya Brennan was that she was not an angel. She was a flawed and, at times, broken human being. However, she never quite let go of the thread of faith, and it led her back to serenity and joy.
I recently reread an extensive 2003 interview with Moya Brennan by Joe Jackson.
She had an abortion in 1971, aged 19, after having sex with someone who ignored her afterwards.
“And I thought I could just have the abortion and get on with my life. Later, I even imagined I’d recovered from it but I hadn’t. In actual fact, I’d started to abuse myself with drink and drugs. But nobody realised this; they just saw this happy-go-lucky person. And that’s how I was for years,” she told Jackson.
She had two lost decades, where she drank too much, had a failed marriage for which she blamed herself, took drugs and had casual sex, all while dying inside.
She also had a miscarriage. She found a prayer book in a drawer called Prayers for Forgiveness and while reading it, she realised belief in God was the only thing giving her peace. Slowly, she began to rediscover her faith and the peace and forgiveness of God.
Then she met Tim Jarvis, a photographer and a committed Christian. Even though they fell deeply in love, Moya was still drinking. Despite promising Tim to give up, she was still taking cocaine.
When he discovered she had broken her promise to him, she felt such shame that it marked a turning point where she gave up drugs and drinking spirits.
Celibate
She and her husband-to-be decided to be celibate in the run-up to their marriage. She had good reasons for the decision.
“One is always wondering, when you have a relationship, if sex was taken out of the equation, would you be left with an empty space,” she reasoned. “It’s a key question when you’re considering marriage. And what celibacy did for us was develop our relationship to a greater strength, making us friends first and foremost, two people who had to talk a hell of a lot to take the place of sex! So remaining celibate certainly worked for us. And when Tim and I did marry it was like rediscovering sex!”
Her relationship with God continued to develop. When she was blessed with two children before menopause hit, she made sure to give them a foundation in faith, conscious of and grateful for the faith her parents had given her.
We have been bluntly told that abortion regret is not real, or alternatively, if it is, that we cannot legislate for people regretting their decisions”
She wrote an autobiography called The Other Side of the Rainbow, now a collector’s item. (This writer would love a copy but cannot afford hundreds of euros.) But it necessitated telling her mother and father about the abortion so that they would not hear about it first from the book.
Her mother was particularly devastated, feeling that she had somehow failed as a mother because Moya had opted for an abortion. This beautiful maternal response shows the depth of their relationship. Today, we have been bluntly told that abortion regret is not real, or alternatively, if it is, that we cannot legislate for people regretting their decisions.
Funeral
It was appropriate that Fr Brian O’Fearraigh was the chief celebrant at her funeral. He and one of the concelebrants, Fr John Joe Duffy, were deeply involved in the Creeslough tragedy, for which Moya fundraised. Not only that but when Fr Brian’s parish church burned to the ground, Moya Brennan, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Daniel O’Donnell held a sell-out concert in Crolly in July 2025 to raise funds for the new church.
May Moya Brennan enjoy forever the heaven she gave us all a foretaste of with her beautiful voice and luminous being.