"I live in Victorian Gothic castle in Killiney that I was so bold as to rename Manderley, because Daphne du Maurier 's Rebecca is one of my favourite books. ... People have this image of me as an ethereal Lady of Shalott, floating across the battlements, but it's a very small castle as castles go — with no big ballrooms... I don't write my music in my home, only in the studio; I want as normal life as possible at home, with dinner parties and entertaining."

“Over the years I have learnt to be on my guard but, as any artist will testify, you are completely powerless if a writer has a certain agenda. There have been many damaging articles that have hurt my family deeply stories about our relationships, particularly between myself and Enya. We resolved in the early days not to talk about our private lives but, especially in Enya's case, this has often led to more intrigue and false speculation. For an artist, it is the unfortunate consequence of being in the public eye, but what makes me really angry is the way the family inevitably bears the suffering.”

“Enya knew nothing about recording, about production or arrangements. Originally, we were stock-piling music and just letting her get on with it. There was no name on the music she was writing. All I knew was that hard work succeeded.”

“Amarantine is an ancient word, which means eternity. The poets describe an undying flower with that word, and I fell in love with that idea ... For me that word suited rhythmically to the refrain of the piece. A-ma-ran-ti-ne. In our website the fans tried to guess something super-romantic to be the album's name, but this word was obviously never guessed by anyone.”

“The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of music as something commercial; it was something very personal to me... The writing of a melody is an emotional moment; success doesn't make it easy.”

“Each heart is a pilgrim, | Each one wants to know | The reason why the winds die | And where the stories go. | Pilgrim, in your journey | You may travel far, | For pilgrim it's a long way | To find out who you are...”

“I heard the soundtrack to The Celts TV programme, which Enya had done, and I thought "what's this magical music?", and it was such an antidote to the, sort of, the day's work, that every night I went home and played the soundtrack from The Celts. And then I met her in Ireland and she was telling me how she was signing to another record company, I went "no, no, no, no, you can't do this, you must sign with us." And I did it really just as a self-indulgence, that I thought this was beautiful music and wanted to be associated with it, there wasn't really a kind of commercial edge to it at all.”