Mairéid Sullivan is a lover of music and laughter. She is a singer, dancer, poet, songwriter, an ever enthusiastic filmmaker, and a life-long student of history. She was born on a farm in the township of Bantry Bay, West Cork, Ireland, the first of seven children. Her father was a master horseman and a fine Irish tenor. Her mother taught her traditional Irish songs. In her twelfth year, her family moved to San Francisco. At age twenty, she traveled to Australia, on holiday with her father, and stayed on. She has been singing traditional Irish songs since early childhood, and many of her original songs reflect on humanity's heritage of joy –particularly as reflected in Irish Celtic culture.
In 1995, Mairéid travelled from Melbourne to Los Angeles to establish US distribution for her music, and stayed until 2002. During those seven years, she recorded vocals for film and documentary soundtracks, and best-selling compilations in the Celtic music genre. (Three of her songs were featured on Billboard's World Music Top 10 charts for nine months in 1995/96.) Interleaf Press published Mairéid’s first poetry collection 'Ancient Self - Memoirs' in 1997. Quarry Music Press published her book, 'Celtic Women in Music' in 1999. Her poems and essays have appeared in many publications, including 'Celtic Tides' (1998) by Martin Melhuish; 'My America' (2002) by Hugh Downs; 'Electronic Music Pioneers' (2002) by Ben Kettlewell. In 2000, Mairéid traveled to Ireland to film a selection of interviews with Ireland’s leading women musicians, exploring sources of the wide variety of cultural styles in Irish music. See short film clips on YouTube LyrebirdChannel.
Recordings: soundtrack for the award-winning film 'Time after Time' (2008), 'Never Drift Apart' (2003),
'For Love's Caress -a Celtic journey' (1998), 'Dancer' (1994), and 'A Celtic Evening' (1998), a live concert duet with Derek Bell (RIP), former harper with the Chieftains.
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