“People thought it was a bit mad that we were singing Gaelic songs,” Moya recalled. At the same time, contemporary artists didn’t understand them. Clannad didn’t go that far, but certainly also pushed the envelope of a very conservative genre, and purists hated them. This was obviously sacrilege of the gravest kind. The Dublin-based band Horslips went several steps further around the same time, mixing traditional Gaelic songs with rock’n’roll, creating rock symphonies based on the traditional works. So we were kind of regarded as being traitors.” The only time you were really allowed to add instruments to singing in Gaelic way back, was the harp, and I wasn’t playing the harp like that. “Gaelic songs were sung unaccompanied,” Moya Brennan explained, “so what we were doing was sacrilege. They started making waves by performing traditional Irish music with musical accompaniment, which gave them a bit of backlash initially. It brought them international acclaim and cemented their signature sound: ethereal vocal harmonies and haunting melodies backed by a mixture of traditional instruments with layers of synth and occasional electric instrumentation.įormed in 1970, Clannad is a family band consisting of the three siblings Máire (Moya), Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, as well as their two twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan (the latter passing in 2016). They had several releases under their belt, but Harry’s Game introduced them to a mainstream public. When Clannad got their first international hit in 1982 with the atmospheric Gaelic ballad (Theme From) Harry’s Game, they had already been active for some 12 years.
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