Through Hell to Heaven

(interview from the Irish Independent Newspaper)

Clannad's Maire Brennan tells Aine O'Connor why she's written about her abortion, drinking and drugs.

MAIRE BRENNAN sits on the sofa in the family room of her home looking remarkably unperturbed. Her autobiography has been released ahead of schedule and at a day's notice, she finds herself doing the publicity three weeks early. Dressed in jeans and a black top, there is not a wrinkle to be seen on the singer's familiar, pretty face. Suprising enough, given that she is 48, and all the more so having read some of the details in her book. The Other Side of the Rainbow is an extraordinarily honest account of Maire's life, from the near idyll of growing up in Gweedore to her current happiness in south Co Dublin with husband Tim and their two children aged eight and six. The road to happiness was not an easy or direct one, and that is the main reason for the book. Maire has only two concerns about such a frank publication, her parents and misinterpretation.

"My mum is finding the book quite hard to take. She knew all the things that were in it but she says 'Why do you have to tell everything? Why do you have to describe eberything?'

"I said it's that people are looking for more explanations now, they are moving away from the Church and not just accepting things. In Donegal, the Paddies and the Biddies will gossip. That's their problem but I would hate people to judge my parents because of me.

"I was also afraid that someone would take the book and only take the bad bits and make a story without realising the reason I did it. You need to know the full story, what is the point in airing your dirty laundry if there isn't a solution to it."

So why has this private women gone so frankly public? "It's very much a spiritual thing. We all have secrets, so my first reaction when I was approached to do it was 'no way'."

However, after some thought Maire felt it would be a good way to explain her spirituality, and it might also help some people.

"I started to think that in Ireland, we love sweeping everything under the carpet. I thought I could stand up," she explains.

The book describes in detail Maire's childhood as the eldest of the nine Brennan children growing up in Gweedore. Although they had been playing together all their lives, Clannad was formed formally in 1972. The band found most success on the continent and it was at one of their first festivals that 19-year-old Maire met Pierre. The French musician charmed her into bed, where, as she puts it in the book, "my convent school promises and pious pledges were forgotten and lost forever".

BUT that one night has serious repercussions. Back in Gweedore, Maire realised she was pregnant. She decided to have an abortion and, with a friend, travelled to Birmingham.

"There are two reasons for chapter seven. There are an awful lot of women that have gone across to Britain for abortions and they are not all young women. I would say there are an awful lot of them carrying guilt. But telling my story is to show that you can be forgiven for it. You can give the child a name and know it is with God and in Heaven. I also thought that maybe by describing it, that maybe someone might think twice about having an abortion. You still find babies dead in the sand, but abortion is a very difficult subject and I am not putting it in the book to champion one side or the other.

"It is a weird episode to go through, and it was an important part of my life because it actually lowered my self-respect."

Through the book, it becomes clear that there was a growing void in Maire's life. Clannad success seesawed, they toured a lot and it was on tour that Maire discovered alcohol and cannabis. Her relationship with the man who would become her first husband was long but ultimately doomed to failure. She was insecure and drinking too much, she put on weight and felt very low. The marriage ended just as Clannad's career was taking off.

"People would have thought that after 'Harry's Game' (which won an Ivor Novello award), Robin of Sherwood (which won a BAFTA) and the song with Bono (which opened a whole new audience) that it must have been great, but it was the worst time in my life. I kind of created this pithole for myself. I dug into deeper and deeper. I thought I was having a great time but it was really camouflaged with drink and drugs."

Maire had begun snorting cocaine, and expresses amazement that she did not develop a serious addiction.

"The turning point for me was when I had a miscarriage out of wedlock. I was just promiscuous and all of a sudden I became pregnant, and I thought it was cool, didn't matter who the father was. Then I had a miscarriage and it completely shocked me into wondering what my life was about and what I was up to.

"THAT'S why my parents are so wonderful, they brought me up so that I knew at least where to turn to. It was a book my grandmother gave me, it taught me to look to the spiritual side of my life where I found some sort of comfort. Things started falling into place and it was like a greater being was helping me to sort my life out.

"We've made religion really complicated and added so much baggage to it but it didn't start like that. What we are asked to is be generous, kind, patient, honourable. It's what people look for now when they go to Buddha. No-one wants to talk about the guy from Israel because it's not politically correct but if I said I went to Nepal or met the Dalai Lama, it would be really cool."

It was during this process, in 1987, that she met photographer Tim. Maire was rediscovering the joy of life, there were relapses and difficulties along the way, but she and Tim married in January 1991. Maire was 38, and keenly aware that her age, her abortion and her misccariage counted against her having children. But the following January she gave birth to Aisling and two years later to Paul.

"I learned a lot about myself writing this book, it was very emotional, I've been tears several times. It was difficult for Tim too, he knew everything about me but to see it written down is hard. It might be shocking to people who saw me as the haunting voice in this Irish family group but I think that's what's important. Life isn't like what's on the cover, it's what's inside all of us that's important. I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think it wasn't going to help one or two people."

*The Other Side of the Rainbow is published by Hodder & Stoughton, 16.99 English pounds.