Moya Brennan’s voice was an unusual instrument to arrive in the Top 20 in November 1982, especially on a Top of the Pops episode featuring the very different delights of A Flock of Seagulls, Eddy Grant and one-hit wonders Blue Zoo. As light as a leaf in the air, it provided a sacred counterpoint to the low, looming drones of a Prophet 5 synthesiser, and, in its breathy solo lines, guided the layered harmonies of her Clannad bandmates – her brothers and uncles – to somewhere new. A week later, Theme from Harry’s Game – the closing song on a radical Yorkshire TV series about The Troubles that played out over three consecutive nights – had jumped to No 5 in the charts, the highest ever position for a song sung in Irish Gaelic.
The lyrics were about the never-ending cycle of life, and how all things must pass, plucked from a proverb from a book of her grandfather’s, by her brother and bandmate, Ciarán. Even to non-speakers, Brennan’s voice sounded like a new kind of spiritual guide, much needed in the anxious early days of Thatcherism and only a few months after the IRA London park bombings. Her impact also expanded the transportive possibilities of traditional music in film and TV. Brennan’s voice became a mainstay of soundtracks, later among them ITV’s Robin of Sherwood series, Titanic and the 2004 feature film adaptation of King Arthur starring Keira Knightley, entering public consciousness in a way similar to how the avant garde output of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop had in the 1960s.
