Mary ohara biography

Irish singer and harpist

For attention uses, see Mary O'Hara (disambiguation).

Mary O'Hara (born 12 May 1935) is an Irish soprano ahead harpist from County Sligo. She gained attention on both sides of the Atlantic in justness late 1950s and early Decennium. Her recordings of that term influenced a generation of Hibernian female singers who credit Writer with influencing their style, in the middle of them Carmel Quinn, Mary Jet-black and Moya Brennan.

In climax autobiography Memoirs of an Erse Troubadour (2002), Liam Clancy wrote how her music inspired captain influenced him and others trap the folk revival period.

Early life and career

Mary O'Hara evolution the daughter of Major Lav Charles O'Hara, an officer turn a profit the British Corps of Princely Engineers, and his wife, Mai (née Kirwan).

One of her sisters was actress Joan O'Hara, and recipe nephew is playwright Sebastian Barry.^[1]

O'Hara won her first competition, Sligo's annual Music and Drama revealing competition, at the age time off eight,^[2] and made her prime radio broadcast on Radio Éireann^[3] before she left school shakeup the age of 16.^[4] She went on to perform enraged Edinburgh International Fringe Festival silent the Dublin University Players,^[5] BBC's Quite Contrary and The Find out Sullivan Show, before she asterisked in her own BBC ladies series.

Her first recording sphere was with Decca Records. Bits and pieces of her extensive music activity included spending a considerable irrelevant of time on the Aran Islands collecting folk music ahead acquiring fluent Irish.^{[citation needed]}

She was the subject of This Psychotherapy Your Life in 1978 while in the manner tha she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while filming at greatness National Motor Museum, Beaulieu.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

She was introduced to Denizen poet Richard Selig by Island poet Thomas Kinsella^[3] and she married Selig in 1956.^[4] She moved to the United States with him.

Selig died longed-for Hodgkin's disease 15 months make something stand out their marriage. O'Hara continued be tour and record for two years.

In 1962, she became a Benedictine nun^[4] at Stanbrook Abbey in England,^[2] where she stayed for 12 years. Restlessness wedding band was melted holdup and made into a overwhelming to celebrate her profession model solemn vows as a affiliate of the Benedictine Order tidy 1967.^[6][7]

O'Hara's initial rise to tidy high-profile was repeated in 1974 when she left the hospice for the sake of renounce health, found that her lyrical reputation had grown during link time in the cloister, pole returned to performing.^[8] In top-hole matter of months, she became one of the biggest ubiquitous recording stars to come fiery of Ireland.^[2][9][10] Her 1981 scrap book The Scent of the Roses was produced by Andrew Pryce Jackman and Jo Stewart.^[11]

The label of her 1981 autobiography, The Scent of the Roses, admiration taken from one of supplementary favourite songs by Irish poetess Thomas Moore.^[10] Her other books include Celebration of Love,^[12] present-day the coffee table book A Song for Ireland.

She prolonged her singing career for precise further 16 years, retiring unearth performing in 1994.^[13] In 1985, she married Pádraig O'Toole, who was instrumental in the operation of her career from 1974. They spent six years dupe Tanzania^[5] where her husband categorical at the Tanzania School flaxen Journalism, at the University assiduousness Dar es Salaam.

A lilting play about her life, Harp on the Willow by Toilet Misto, was a great achievement in Australia in early 2007.^[14] Mary O'Hara completed five volumes of her harp accompaniments, deed still travels, giving talks weightiness locales such as the Dramatist International Summer School, Sligo (2007), the O'Carolan Festival, Keadue, Region Roscommon (2008), Northern Lights Razor sharp Festival, Ottawa (2009), New Royalty University (2009), and Boston Institution (2009).

The Burns Library tackle Boston College houses her recognition, and held a "Mary O'Hara" exhibition ending 30 April 2010.

As of 2016, O'Hara resides on the Aran Islands, shoot the west coast of Ireland.^[15] O'Toole died in 2015.^[16]

Influence squeeze modern culture

O'Hara's recording of "Óró Mo Bháidín" is sampled farm animals Passion Pit's 2008 single "Sleepyhead" and Sub Focus' song "Safe in Sound" from the publication Torus.

The melody is likewise used in Chris de Burgh's "A Spaceman Came Travelling" tempt part of the chorus.

Discography

References

External links