Enya’s Irish estate is straight out of a fairytale.
The beloved singer/songwriter, 64, best known for classic New Age-pop songs like “Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)” has long lived in a secluded, historic Irish castle. Enya (real name Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin) purchased Manderley Castle outside of Dublin for a reported 3.8 million Euros (around $4.1 million) in 1997. Unmarried with no kids, the Grammy winner lives a life of privacy with her pet cats.
“It’s very castle on the exterior, but it’s very much a home inside,” she said of the property in an interview with The Guardian in November 2000. “It’s actually a very small castle and I fell in love with it.”
Among her famous neighbors is fellow Irish musician Bono. “When I first walked in, someone said it overlooked Bono’s,” she told the outlet. “I thought, ‘Hmm, so it does.’”
Over a decade later, she told The Guardian in a November 2015 interview that the best part about living in her own personal castle is the views. “In the morning I open the shutters – you’ll note in the castle it’s shutters, not curtains – and I look out onto the Irish sea,” she gushed. “It’s beautiful and very inspirational.”
Not many details are known about the property, which is reportedly surrounded by 3.5 acres of gardens. The location was previously known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle before Enya renamed it Manderley after the fictional manor from the Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca.
Per the Sunday Times, the castle is surrounded by “9ft stone walls and a solid timber gate” and offers views of the Irish Sea. The residence has intrigued Enya’s fans for years, some disturbingly so: a stalker broke into the property and tied up a maid in 2005, while another person even stabbed himself after being thrown out of Enya’s family’s pub in Donegal.
Enya has never shared a look inside the home, focusing her social media presence on her work rather than her personal life. Her privacy is something Enya said her fans “really understand” in a September 2017 interview with The Believer. “They’ll ask for an autograph and they’ll just leave,” she explained. “They are very understanding to the way that I like to live, and to the fact that I’ve always pushed the music, rather than myself, forward. I always say that fame and success are two different things.”
Jérôme Fernandes, a restaurant owner whose business is near Enya’s home, told the Sunday Times last month that the singer is “rarely seen these days” but is “still very much respected” in the community.
Another local resident, Pam Cooney, added, “I’ve never seen her out and about, and we get many stars either going to the pub or enjoying a meal in the village. Nevertheless, if Enya doesn’t choose to go out in public much, that’s her business alone. She’s had an incredibly successful career and deserves to spend her time as she wishes.”
Amid her famed reclusiveness, Enya made a rare public appearance at the Grammy Awards back in February 2017, where she was nominated for Best New Age Album for her album Dark Sky Island. She maintained her signature black bob hairstyle while sporting a simple and chic white dress with a beaded mesh shoulder covering.
