Born: July 14th, 1946
Died: September 10th, 2025
Nicky Ryan was born on July 14th, 1946, and grew up in Dublin’s East Wall. He was a sound engineer, producer and manager who, along with his wife, Roma, formed the powerful duo who produced and co-wrote Enya’s repertoire.
Nicky managed Enya with a clear-eyed determination and an ear for perfection that led to her unparalleled global success.
Nicky was the youngest of seven children (two boys and five girls) born to Ned and Mona Ryan of East Wall. While still a schoolboy, he worked alongside his father delivering coal, but his penchant for sound recording developed while he was still at school, capturing his siblings on reel-to-reel recorders.
In his teens, Nicky won a music competition with a mouth music rendition of Glenn Miller’s In the Mood, the prize for which was a visit to Abbey Road recording studios and an opportunity to meet The Beatles. He was unable to travel though, due to a lack of funds to cover his travel expenses.
RM Block
Nicky started his career as a teacher in St Mary’s School for deaf girls in Cabra. His initial forays into sound engineering were inspired by his desire to make music accessible to his students.
Designing a bespoke speaker that focused on the lower and deep registers of the sound spectrum, Nicky created a solution whose vibrations could be felt by his students through the floor. Through his innovation, they could feel the music and dance to it.
It was a mark of Nicky’s skill as a sound engineer that his early forays into the music business saw him working with artists as diverse as Thin Lizzy, Gary Moore, De Danann, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh & Frankie Kennedy, Planxty and Christy Moore. Andy Irvine recalled Nicky’s time working with Planxty with great fondness.
[ Nicky Ryan, producer behind Enya’s global success, dies aged 79Opens in new window ]
“Nicky had a great sense of humour and a wonderful infectious laugh that often led us into convulsions of hysterical laughter,” Andy recalls. “He was an integral member of the band and apart from praising or criticising the band’s music, he was absolutely dedicated to the band’s sound.
“On occasions, he would come backstage after a soundcheck and say: ‘Sorry lads, no monitors tonight, they are interfering with the front of house sound.’ It was a bone of contention, but his insistence could not be overruled. We were always proud of our sound under Nicky.”
Nicky was introduced to Clannad by Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh (who managed The Boomtown Rats and Sinéad O’Connor) in 1976, when the pair travelled to Buncrana to see Clannad perform live. Nicky immediately saw the potential of the band and offered to manage them. Together they worked on four albums.
“Nicky was a really creative spirit”, Moya Brennan said. “He was very much part of the building of Clannad. He became part of our sound and helped us explore that.”
Moya Brennan recounts how Ryan’s creativity pushed Clannad to explore their sound in unconventional ways. Once, while in a recording studio in Wales, he had Moya playing her harp on top of a grand piano to see whether it would enhance the instrument’s sound.
By 1982, an 18-year-old Eithne Ní Bhraonáin (sister of Moya) started singing with Clannad, at Nicky’s suggestion. Nicky and his wife Roma, a poet and lyricist, recognised something special in this teenager, who later became Enya. Nicky resigned from Clannad and shortly afterwards Enya came to work and live with Nicky and Roma.
The trio decided to work together, inspired by Enya’s voice and by what Nicky saw as their potential to create a multilayered sound inspired by Phil Spector’s wall of sound, but built upon a “choir of one”.
He focused on the musicality of a musician and enhancing what the artist wasn’t aware of themselves
— Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh
Enya became part of the Ryan family, working and living in their family home in Artane with their two young daughters. It was here that Aigle studios was born in the Ryans’ garden shed, and where the trio worked intensively to explore and build what subsequently became Enya’s distinctive sound.
[ Enya breaks her silence on fame, privacy and musicOpens in new window ]
One of their earliest collaborations was on the soundtrack to the David Puttnam-produced film, The Frog Prince.
Nicky’s exceptional sound engineer and production abilities were melded with an insistence on perfection, a heady combination that drove the evolution of Enya’s music. His wife Roma brought a deeply sympathetic ear to Enya’s music, and by the time of the release of Enya’s second album, Watermark, their distinctive sound achieved massive global success.
Among their numerous accolades were four Grammys and an Academy Award nomination in 2002 for May It Be.
Nicky’s sound engineering and production transformed not only Enya’s career but drew a global audience to the Irish music landscape. He went on to mine sonic boundaries in unprecedented ways for more than four decades.
While Enya’s music has often been described as “ethereal” and “haunting”, Nicky’s production pushed the music to inhabit spaces that resonated deeply with listeners, and led to sampling by artists as diverse as The Fugees, Rihanna and Mario Winans.
Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, of Altan, recalls her early experience working with Nicky on Ceol Aduaidh, her album with the late Frankie Kennedy, where Enya guested on synthesiser.
“His great talent was the minute and the subtle sounds and enhancing them … maybe doubling an instrument to spread it across the sound spectrum or using reverb to create a certain atmosphere. He focused on the musicality of a musician and enhancing what the artist wasn’t aware of themselves.”
Frankie Gavin, of De Danann, recalls working with Nicky, describing him as “a gifted engineer and a joy to work with”. Frankie considered that Nicky “was by far the best because he ‘listened’ to the instruments and the music, as opposed to being guided by needles and dials. What a combination, brilliant at his work and hilariously funny”.
Nicky died in St. Vincent’s Hospital after an admission for tests.
He is survived by his wife, Roma, and his two daughters, Ebony and Persia, his grandchildren, brother, sisters and extended family.
