By Dan Cain For Mailonline. But Enya, 54, has maintained a reclusive existence since she shot to super-stardom following the release of her global hit Orinoco Flow Sail Away in , and has never toured her solo material.
Scroll down for video. She lives like a queen. She is a recluse. Enya, who is renowned for her ethereal vocals, lives in the impressive Ayesha Castle in Killiney, south Dublin, which boasts stunning views of the Irish Sea.
Her next door neighbour is U2 frontman Bono and in a rare televised appearance on This Morning last month she joked that the rocker popped round to borrow sugar. Doing it her way: Enya, 54, has maintained a reclusive existence since she shot to super-stardom following the release of her global hit Orinoco Flow Sail Away in , and has never toured her solo material. She previously told The Guardian : 'It's very castle on the exterior, but it's very much a home inside. It's actually a very small castle and I fell in love with it'.
Her unique brand of music is created in collaboration with producer Nicky Ryan, 67, and his lyricist wife Roma. The Irish songstress is her country's best-selling solo artist and has released nine studio albums, selling an estimated 75 million records worldwide.
She's recorded in 10 different languages including in Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien's Sindarin and Quenya, as well as a language created by herself and her songwriters called Loxian. The star's success is an anomaly in an industry where constant touring, heavy radio play and public appearances are usually required to return strong record sales. However, she has vehemently defended her lifestyle and approach to music.
The Irish songstress is her country's best-selling solo artist and has released nine studio albums selling an estimated 75 million records worldwide. My choice is that after a certain amount of promotion, I feel it gets very false and then I'm not interested. I love the music to be known, but I'm not after fame for myself. She told The Independent that she had 'never tried to create an enigma' but has always been an independent person.
While she longs to create unique music uninfluenced by current chart trends, she allegedly has an eclectic taste in music which includes Green Day and Puff Daddy. You know? You want both worlds. The star has admitted though that she struggles to trust in relationships and has never been publicly linked with a partner.
Instead she splits her time between her castle and a home in South of France and a reported 12 cats , waiting for her muse to strike again. Enya discusses singing in different languages in Love Glastonbury? Megan Fox at What happened to the Transformers star? Enya's castle in Ireland Image: PA.
Ireland Pop Music. While she does get out and about, her fans know to give her space if they are ever lucky enough to spot her. In , the singer told The Believer via Literary Hub that her fans understand her. I always say that fame and success are two different things.
Enya doesn't get as recognized as often as you might expect for someone so famous, perhaps because of the notoriously low profile she keeps.
She said that people often tell her that she looks like Enya, however. The public might not know much about the singer's whereabouts, but surely Enya's family is keeping tabs on her, right? Not according to her uncle. She is a recluse. There are, of course, any number of reasons that Enya might not see her uncle, or other members of her family very much. That doesn't mean that she's totally estranged from all of her relatives, though.
The Sun added that Enya is on good terms with other members of her family and enjoys spending a lot of time with her nieces and nephews. Enya also told Literary Hub that she goes shopping with her sister, so there's no reason to assume that Enya's desire for privacy means that she is completely antisocial.
The paparazzi has a difficult time of getting a shot of Enya, and would also have a hard time e-mailing her. The singer doesn't just stay out of the public eye in real life, but also keeps a low profile on the internet.
While celebrities often engage with their fans online, Enya is rather disconnected from social media. She has an official Twitter account , but she rarely posts anything and doesn't appear to have been active on the site since She's also been quiet on Facebook since early , and while she has an Instagram account , it's super under the radar.
So much so that it could easily be a fake account, if not for the fact that her official website links to it. It's not just social media that Enya avoids. Even more traditional forms of online communication are avoided by the singer. Her e-mail is only checked every few weeks, and when she does check it, she does so quickly. I'd rather go for a walk.
Back in , Enya spoke to The Telegraph about her plans for the future. I'd better settle down and have a family'. Why should anyone make me feel this is what I should do? Whatever path you go down, you should feel comfortable with it.
In the years that have passed since that interview, Enya hasn't changed her stance. She hasn't married nor had children, although she does wear a ring on her wedding ring finger. What makes her music — and the mysterious woman behind it — appealing to so many? Anne Helen Petersen visits the reclusive singer in Ireland. At least everyone in Killiney, the sloping oceanside village 45 minutes out of Dublin.
Walk past a massive public park, where paths thread by a resting quarry and an obelisk, erected in to distract the Irish peasants from the hard year that had come before. Surveillance cameras eye and remind: Enya does not accept visitors unbidden. The castle is small, as castles go: just six bedrooms.
But when Enya moved in, she redid them all. Her bedroom has no curtains, just shutters, and when she opens them each morning, the Irish sea sprawls out before her. There are the Wicklow Mountains in one direction, and there's Dalkey Island, where the mystical stones of the druids still mystify, in the other. Traditionally, castles were passed through family lines.
But unlike her neighbor Bono, whose income stems from massive world tours, Enya does not tour, and never has toured. She submits to minimal press. She takes up to seven years between albums. Yet she has sold a total of 80 million records, and is one of a dwindling group whose records people are willing to buy.
Several years ago, she was invited to Harvard Business School to discuss the subject, but, like most invitations, Enya declined. Her underexposure, after all, is at the heart of both Enya-nomics and her appeal. One shopkeeper claims to have seen a woman matching her description in a tracksuit, but the idea of Enya in a tracksuit boggles the mind. There are no photos of Enya in pants, or without the makeup that emphasizes her alabaster skin and dark, pooling eyes.
Her look, like her sound, is markedly different from the norms of musical celebrity: her pitch black hair trimmed short, her clothes Arthurian. Her look, like her sound, seems to exist outside of time. In her songs, there are no references to objects, technological or otherwise: just emotions, swells, landscapes, time. In her real life, she checks her email once every few weeks, and even then, very quickly.
She transcends centuries, but she also exceeds hierarchies of cool. Her style has been derogatorily described as Muzak or New Age — the aural approximation of a warm bath — but might be more fairly described as ancient choral music on synth steroids. For her to become not just an artist, but an adjective.
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