Considered one of the most beautiful sounds in the history of popular music, the voice of MARIE BRENNAN reached millions with her work with Celtic pioneers Clannad. Now the singer is back with a stunning gospel album. Mike Rimmer reports.

It should come as no surprise to find Maire singing in Gaelic on 'Perfect Time' since it's her first language and her family and the band Clannad originate from Donegal, which is a Gaelic speaking area of Ireland. Clannad pioneered singing in Gaelic helping to make it popular once more. I ask Maire about this aspect of her work. "The Gaelic songs were unaccompanied, that's basically the way they were sung up to the time that we started to sing and take songs and put them into an arrangement. We collected an awful lot of Gaelic songs and some of them were so beautiful. What we tried to do when we were arranging them was to give an image of basically maybe what the song was about and this is where the Clannad sound developed from, that kind of trying to imagine visions of what we were singing about, but the beauty of the language itself is incredible and also it's just full of blessings. Hello in Irish is 'God be with you', and people use this in language today. It was gorgeous to be able to write some Gaelic songs."

Maire continues, warming to talk with passion about her native tongue, "When Clannad started to sing Gaelic songs we were told we were absolutely mad because it wouldn't exist in 10 years' time, but it's still there and it's quite strong and there're so many people now, it's got a respect now which it didn't have, and there's so many people who would say little phrases and there's more people speaking it in Dublin and Belfast now and there's more people wanting to learn it." The popularity of Gaelic has proven to be ironic in Maire's family life as she explains; "There's a Gaelic school in Dublin that you can't get into. I mean I find it very difficult to get my own daughter into a Gaelic school which I thought was hilarious."

'Perfect Time' includes a Gaelic version of Psalm 67.1 wonder whether the translation already existed or whether Maire wrote it. The answer proves to be more commonplace! Maire explains, "I had the Irish Bible, a big, big, red Irish Bible I was going 'round with and I got it from one of the bishops who translated it and did a wonderful job. It's beautifully written and I wrote the music for the song and I was really thrilled with it."

The choir featured on the song is from the church where Maire grew up. She explains, "The choir has got such an earthly sound. We could have got any choir in America or Dublin or whatever, but it wouldn't have the wholesomeness and also obviously singing in Gaelic. So it's quite special to me because it carries something really wonderful about it."

Even in the recording of the song with the Catholic choir Maire is making a statement about her beliefs. "Here I am doing a Christian album," she says, "and I didn't want to say I'm a Christian and this is what you have to be because my brothers and sisters are Catholics and my mum and dad are wonderful people, and we've done enough of segregating each other. It is so important as Christians just to gather around each other and make it all strong, I mean to be a witness as a Christian is important and I think it's time to stop being judgmental about how we do and just look into your own heart and know that it is the same God and Jesus that we adore, and that's what is important."

One person who has benefited from Maire's Gaelic lessons is Joanne Hogg from Iona who sang "Be Thou My Vision" in Gaelic on 'Journey Into The Morn'. I wonder what Maire remembers about working with Iona. "I went to see them when they played here in the club in Dublin," she recalls, "and I introduced myself and became friends and I suppose we knew we'd do something together some time. Joanne asked me it I'd be interested to do something in Gaelic and 'Be Thou My Vision', my grandfather had translated a while back. He's passed on now and so I told her this and she asked if I would coach her in singing it because she doesn't speak Gaelic. I was absolutely delighted. It was really great fun and I suppose it was my first introduction to singing on a Christian album or doing something like this at all, because when I became part of the church I'm involved in now here in Dublin. I was going there three years before I got into the worship band. I didn't want to parade in there and say 'Excuse me, I'm a singer!' What happened was that people got to know me for me and it was very important for me so the whole thing has been very gradual and part of becoming a Christian and learning God's way and then just getting involved slowly but surely."

In a previous interview with Joanne Hogg, she had told me that Maire had found hearing Joanne sing her grandfather's translation a very moving experience to the point that she was reduced to tears, in the studio. "Well, I was, yes," she admits, "because I suppose it was the first time something like that was on a record. I sang in church or sang with my mum but you know no-one's ever recorded anything like that. But it was lovely the way she sang it and the time I spent with them was quite moving." I point out that it was interesting that they wanted Maire to play Celtic harp because most people who hire her for studio work want Maire to sing! She laughs and replies, "I know and this is probably why I jumped at it and I thought what a nice thing, because it's very true, very few ask me to play the harp rather than sing, so it was a nice surprise and I wish I'd practised more on the harp."

Perhaps she's being modest but to these ears, Maire's harp playing on 'Perfect Time' is stunning in its beauty. I suggest the track "Doon Well" is the best example of her playing and she tells me about the song, "I'd written this tune and I just wanted to write... sometimes the more beautiful melodies are just simple melodies, sometimes with a little twist because you find it, sometimes the actual second pattern of the instrumental doesn't finish and I like that about it but 'Doon Well' is a name of a well in Donegal and it's regarded as the holy well of healing, going back years ago to St Collumcille's days so I wanted to add something of St Collumcille on my album."

A lot of the album explores Celtic Christianity so I ask Maire to give me the background on why she has chosen to go in this direction. She explains, "When it came about that I was going to do a Christian album, there were a couple of things on my world tour with Clannad at the time and various things about me that kept pointing at making it a Celtic Christian album. So I started to read up a fair amount about the Celtic tradition and the Celtic culture. I think it's something we've forgotten. God used the Celtic culture in an extraordinary way many years ago as far as sending out missionaries was concerned. I'm sure it's got a lot to do with the Celtic culture being widespread around the world. It's such a small country for its music and art to be so widespread. I'm sure it's got something to do with that because there was 10 per cent of the people in Ireland becoming missionaries, it was quite extraordinary. Also the fact that when the dark ages were all over Europe, the golden age was happening in Ireland and they were the ones that brought Christianity back to Europe again, so I'm led to believe, in some of the books I'm reading. So God has used this Celtic culture quite a lot and I don't know, I've a feeling that he's about to do that again. I feel that I'm led into this, I feel that I'm much more known in the non-Christian music world and there's probably a reason for it, because when I prayed about whether I was doing the right thing years ago, God just wanted me to do what I was doing and I think the reason was to become popular to where I am, and maybe people are curious and want to know why am I doing a thing like this."

There is of course the suspicion that a Christian album won't be as well received as her previous solo albums but Maire shares a story to suggest otherwise. "There is a friend of a friend who heard this album," she tells me, "and she doesn't believe in anything and she loves this album. After a while I tried to explain to her what it was all about by saying, 'Do you realise it's a Christian album?' and she said, 'Can I take it with me?'. So she didn't care, it just made her feel good. So if it's going to have a little bit of an effect on people then maybe it would be nice if it is looked upon as a Celtic culture, Celtic Christian album, and maybe get more people to talk about it in this country, in particular because we really need to talk about Ireland and it's culture - where it's come from and where it's going to, because I think people have lost the whole focus of what St Patrick was about. He left beautiful letters and words and he was such a holy man and the miracles that surround him and his disciples like St Collumcille and St Brenden, and St Bridget are amazing."

'Perfect Time' took Maire a little while to record, as she explains, "I took a while to organise my contract with Word. I started to write some of the songs at the beginning of last year and I'm glad I did because it introduced me to it. I was able to look back and correct things. It gave me the time to see what I did and what I should really do with it. I probably wrote about half the album at the beginning of last year and then the Clannad album started in May and I got very much soaked up. The Clannad album was supposed to be finished by the beginning of October and then I was supposed to get into doing my own album and finish just before the beginning of December. The Clannad one over-ran and I ended up doing a bit of both at the end, but ending up obviously finishing the 'Perfect Time' by the 10th December. They overlapped a little bit at the end. It was really the beginning of November when I got back to it again. I have a studio in the house and I did most of it in the house which is obviously a luxury and the producer Dennis Wood, who has produced two Clannad albums, produced it with me, and then we mixed it in London."

I wonder whether Maire played most of the instruments too? "I did some keyboards. I didn't do it all. Dennis Wood is a keyboard player as well so between us we did a fair amount, but anything we could replace like pipes or guitars, I brought in people who I knew and who I'd worked with before, also I drafted in a sister to play and sing a bit."

One of the most interesting songs on the album is "Our World". Maire tells me about it, '"Our World' is probably the most 'worldly' of the songs. It's really recognising it's a difficult world to live in because of the way it's moving along, and asking God's angels to help us on our way."

Over the years, Maire and the rest of Clannad have built up an easily identifiable and much imitated sound.