Dolores Keane will forever be remembered as one part of the chorus of heavenly voices behind the 1992 album A Woman's Heart. Alongside Eleanor McEvoy, Mary and Frances Black, Sharon Shannon, and Maura O'Connell, Keane could always be proud that she was part of the biggest-selling album in Irish history but she had found her voice many years previously as a founding member of De Danann and later as a solo artist.
Of course, we can go even further back than that to the infant Dolores learning songs and how to sing at the feet of her aunts Rita and Sarah in the village of Caherlistrane outside Tuam in Galway.
The singer, who has died at the age of 72, was one of the defining voices of Ireland’s folk and trad tradition and a huge influence on contemporary artists such as Lisa O’Neill and Lankum.
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She released a string of acclaimed albums with De Danann and several commercially successful solo works in the early 90s. She also sang defining interpretations of classic songs such as Dougie MacLean's Caledonia and Frank A. Fahey's Galway Bay.
Her voice always brought a fresh power and depth to whatever she sang - as the late American singer Nanci Griffith said of her: "Dolores Keane, the queen of the soul of Ireland, has a sacred voice."
That voice, deep, sweet and earthy, was an incredibly adaptable instrument and expressed sorrow and joy like few others over the past decades. Her songs cut deep and were often powerful testimonies to her own struggles with addiction and mental health.
Keane was born into music in Caherlistrane, where she was raised by her aunts Rita and Sarah, who were both renowned local sean-nós singers. By the age of just five, Dolores made her first recording when she appeared for Radio Éireann in 1958.
Speaking about her upbringing on the Tommy Tiernan Show in March 2023, Keane said, "There was always music in the house, always. I was never thought where the buttons were or where the strings were. It was just a way of life.
"I didn't live with my parents. I left there at about three or four. My sister died of TB and all the rest of the family had to be farmed out to the cousins until the house was safe for living in again and I still miss it so much.
"I never went back except for when my Aunt Rita would bring us to Salthill for a day during the summer or we’d go visiting on a Sunday but other than that I didn’t have much of a rapport with the rest of my family for a long time."
Watch: Dolores Keane sing Scottish folk ballad Caledonia
The Keane family, who also include Dolores’ brothers Seán and Matt and sister Theresa, were a formidable local musical force and she was to truly find her voice with traditional Irish band De Dannan, which she co-founded in 1975.
They enjoyed considerable national and international success at a time when Irish folk and trad was going through a new awakening and the band scored a sizable hit in Ireland in 1975 with The Rambling Irishman.
Keane married multi-instrumentalist John Faulkner and in 1978, she released her debut solo album, There Was a Maid. There was also further work with De Dannan on the very successful albums Anthem and Ballroom.
However, it was in the early 90s that she enjoyed new heights of popularity with the albums Dolores Keane and A Lion in a Cage, the lead single of which was her first Irish No 1 hit.
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She made her acting debut in a new production of Brendan Behan's The Hostage, and in 1995, she also appeared in Playboy of the Western World.
When A Woman’s Heart was released in 1992, it was expected to be a minor success but the combination of Keane, the Black sisters, McEvoy, Shannon and O'Connell hit a musical and emotional nerve and proved to be a commercial powerhouse, selling 750,000 copies in Ireland alone.
More solo records by Keane were to follow and in the late 90s, she was back with De Dannan for shows in Ireland, the UK and the US. However, in more recent years, the singer, who was the mother to two children, Joseph and Tara, had largely brought a close to her recording and touring career.
The singer had always been open about her struggles with alcoholism and speaking to Tommy Tiernan in that 2023 interviews, she said, "I've had a lot of ups and downs during my life as a singer. A few major things, drink being one of them and I think, and I’m saying this to the audience now, it doesn’t help anyone.
"You think that it does, but it creeps up on you . . . like do you ever get a bad itch and it starts to move and you think, `ooh, there’s something wrong here’?
She added, "That’s how it happened to me. The whole feeling of being an alcoholic, it really scared me, and I was at a stage where I thought I’m never going to beat this, I’m never going to beat this and it wasn’t until I met a very dear friend of mine and he spoke to me and within a matter of about half an hour, I knew that I didn’t need it anymore. It was as simple as that."
She released her last song, The Refuge, in 2023 and speaking about how her voice was holding up, she said, "It's good, it’s good but my arthritis is not that great. When I’m on stage I’m fine once I get into the swing of things."
Throughout her life, Keane always spoke about how she was part of a proud tradition and that her vocation was to carry on the music from generation to generation. She will be remembered as an ambassador and a guardian of Ireland’s sacred folk and trad traditions.
