Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill is an acclaimed Irish traditional singer, keyboard player, and composer. She is considered one of the most influential female vocalists in the history of Irish music. Throughout her career, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill has worked with renowned traditional Irish groups such as

Skara Brae Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill in the parish of Sandwick, Orkney, Sandwick, on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. It consiste ...

, The Bothy Band, and Nightnoise. In February 2024 it was announced that she was to be recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 6th RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards.

Early years

Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill was raised in

Kells, County Meath Kells (; ) is a town in County Meath, Ireland. The town lies off the M3 motorway, from Navan and from Dublin. Along with other towns in County Meath, it is within the commuter belt for Dublin, and had a population of 6,608 as of the 2022 ce ...

. She was born in 1953. Her paternal grandparents moved there from the

Rann na Feirste Ranafast or Rinnafarset, officially only known by its Irish name Rann na Feirste (), is a Gaeltacht village and townland in the Rosses district in the west of County Donegal in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. Name Ranafast, or someti ...

Gaeltacht A ( , , ) is a district of Ireland, either individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home. The districts were first officially recognised ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

in the 1930s. Tríona is from a prominent musical family. Her paternal aunt, Neillí, contributed nearly 300 folk songs to the folklore collection of

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

. Together with her brother,

Mícheál Ó Domhnaill Mícheál Ó Domhnaill (; 7 October 1951 – 7 July 2006) was an Irish singer, guitarist, composer, and producer who was a major influence on Irish traditional music in the second half of the twentieth century. He is remembered for his innovat ...

, younger sister Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill, and multi-instrumentalist Dáithí Sproule, Ní Dhomhnaill formed the folk group,

, in which she played the

clavinet The Clavinet is an electric clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and respond ...

and sang. Skara Brae specialised in songs sung in the

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

, many sourced from the Rann na Feirste area where their father's family originated.

The Bothy Band

When Dónal Lunny left the band Planxty in 1975, he formed a new group to accompany accordion player Tony MacMahon on a series of shows for Irish National Radio. Along with uilleann pipe player Paddy Keenan,

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

and

whistle A whistle is a musical instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It is a type of Fipple, fipple flute, and may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a s ...

player Matt Molloy, and fiddle player Paddy Glackin, Ní Dhomhnaill and her brother became charter members. Initially named Seachtar (Irish for "seven people"), the group changed its name to the Bothy Band after the departure of MacMahon. In this group, too, Ní Dhomhnaill played clavinet and vocals. As the Bothy Band, the group played its first concert on 2 February 1975, at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

. Although they were together for only three years, the Bothy Band were one of the first bands to bring the musical traditions of Ireland up to contemporary standards. While the group experienced numerous personnel changes, Ní Dhomhnaill and her brother Micheal were still members when the Bothy Band's final album, ''Afterhours'', was recorded during a concert performance at the Palais des Arts in Paris in 1978. A second live album, ''Live in Concert'', recorded by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in London at the Paris Theatre in July 1976 and Kilburn National Theatre in July 1978, was released in 1995. She continues to perform with the band following its reunion in 2023.

Career in the United States

By the time the Bothy Band disbanded in 1979, Ní Dhomhnaill had been persuaded by singer/songwriter Mike Cross to emigrate to

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, Orange and Durham County, North Carolina, Durham counties, North Carolina, United States. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 United States census, making Chapel Hill the List of municipa ...

in the United States. Ní Dhomhnaill soon assembled a new band of North American musicians, Touchstone, that initially rehearsed in Cross's home. The band consisted of Ní Dhomhnaill and Zan McLeod, who had worked with singer and songwriter Mike Cross. Touchstone's two albums, ''The New Land'' (1982) and ''Jealousy'' (1984), combined songs sung in Irish, original singer/songwriter tunes, and traditional

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

s from the United States and

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

. The band's music was described as

traditional Irish music Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a Music genre, genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Irela ...

with some

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass has roots in African America ...

influence. They disbanded in the mid 1980s. Relocating to

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, in the mid-1980s, Ní Dhomhnaill was reunited with her brother

Mícheál Micheal is a masculine given name. It is sometimes an anglicized form of the Irish names Micheál, Mícheál and Michéal; or the Scottish Gaelic name Mìcheal. It is also a spelling variant of the common masculine given name '' Michael'', and is ...

, who had emigrated to the area from Ireland a few years before. Together with the Cunningham brothers,

Johnny Johnny is an English language personal name. It is usually an affectionate diminutive of the masculine given name John (given name), John, but from the 16th century it has sometimes been a given name in its own right for males and, less commonly ...

and

Phil Phil may refer to: * Phil (given name), a shortened version of masculine and feminine names * Phill, a given name also spelled "Phil" * Phil, Kentucky, United States * Phil (film), ''Phil'' (film), a 2019 film * -phil-, a lexical fragment, used as ...

, formerly with the Scottish group Silly Wizard, they toured and recorded two albums as Relativity. They also collaborated with Billy Oskay and Brian Dunning, (Billy Oskay was later replaced by Johnny Cunningham), in a Celtic-tinged new age group, Nightnoise.

Discography

Solo albums * ''Tríona'' (1975) * ''The Key's Within'' (2010) With Skara Brae * ''

'' (1971) With Clannad * '' Clannad 2'' (1975) With The Bothy Band * ''The Bothy Band'' (1975) * ''Old Hag You Have Killed Me'' (1976) * ''Out of the Wind'' (1977) * ''After Hours (Live in Paris)'' (1979) * ''Best of the Bothy Band'' (1983) * ''The Bothy Band – Live in Concert'' (1995) With Touchstone * ''The New Land'' (1982) * ''Jealousy'' (1984) With Relativity * ''Relativity'' (1985) * ''Gathering Pace'' (1987) With Nightnoise * ''Something of Time'' (1987) * ''At the End of the Evening'' (1988) * ''The Parting Tide'' (1990) * ''A Windham Hill Retrospective'' (1992, compilation) * ''Shadow of Time'' (1993) * ''A Different Shore'' (1995) * ''The White Horse Sessions'' (1997) * ''Pure Nightnoise'' (2006, compilation) With Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill * '' Idir an Dá Sholas'' (with Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill and Dónal Lunny) (1999) With other artists * '' The Gathering'' (1981) * '' Imeall'' (with Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh) (2008) * '' Ceol Cheann Dubhrann'' (2009) * '' T with the Maggies'' (2010) Compilations * ''Celtic Christmas: A Windham Hill Sampler'' (1995) * ''Celtic Christmas Volume II: A Windham Hill Sampler'' (1996) * '' The Rough Guide to Irish Music'' (1996) * ''Celtic Christmas Volume III: A Windham Hill Sampler'' (1997) * ''Celtic Christmas Volume IV: A Windham Hill Sampler'' (1998) * "A Celtic Season: A Windham Hill Collection" (1995)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ni Dhomhnaill, Triona Musicians from County Meath Irish women pianists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Skara Brae (band) members The Bothy Band members Relativity (band) members Nightnoise members T with the Maggies members Irish-language singers 20th-century Irish women singers 21st-century Irish women singers 21st-century Irish pianists 20th-century women pianists 21st-century women pianists 20th-century Irish pianists 20th-century Irish folk musicians 21st-century Irish folk musicians 1970s in Irish music 1980s in Irish music 1990s in Irish music 2000s in Irish music 2010s in Irish music 2020s in Irish music