Eithne Padraigin Ni Bhraonain was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, an area of the remote parish of Gweedore, County Donegal in northwestern Ireland. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how Eithne is pronounced in Irish; "Ni Bhraonain" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The fifth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians.

Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past".

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