22. März 2026
ZUM TOD DER IRISCHEN FOLKSÄNGERIN DOLORES KEANE (DE DANNAN)
Die am 28. September 1953 in Sylane bei Tuam (County Galway, Irland) geborene irische Folksängerin Dolores Keane (Bild) ist am 16. März 2026 in Caherlistra gestorben. Sie war zunächst Mitbegründerin der irischen Band De Dannan und startete kurz darauf ihre Solokarriere. In den 1990er-Jahren erlangte sie grosse Bekanntheit, pausierte dann jedoch ihre Karriere, ehe sie ab Mitte der 2010er-Jahre wieder auftrat. Keane ist weltweit bekannt für ihre tiefe, melodische Stimme. Ihre Aufnahmen von Liedern wie Dougie MacLeans «Caledonia», Frank A. Faheys «Galway Bay», Paul Bradys «The Island» und Donagh Longs «Never Be the Sun» gelten als einige der bekanntesten Interpretationen im Irish Folk. Berühmt ist Keane nicht nur für ihre Solokarriere, sondern auch für ihr Mitwirken bei der erfolgreichen Folk-Anthologie «A Woman’s Heart», die sie zusammen mit anderen bekannten irischen Sängerinnen aufnahm. (*)
Bild: Dolores Keane während eines Auftritts von De Dannan beim Trowbridge Folk Festival 1985 – Foto: Tony 1212, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tony_1212 – Lizenz: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en – Datei: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:D-keane-1985_Restored.jpg
Statement by Minister O’Donovan on the death of Dolores Keane
I am deeply saddened by the passing of Dolores Keane, one of Ireland’s most soulful and iconic voices. A true pioneer of the folk tradition, her unique gift brought the beauty of Irish song to the global stage. Her music and her spirit will live on in the hearts of all who were moved by her incredible talent. May she rest in peace.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.
Irish folk singer Dolores Keane dies aged 72
A member of the renowned Keane family, she first came to prominence performing with her aunts Rita and Sarah.
She performed with De Dannan in the mid-1970s and recorded several albums with then husband John Faulkner, before embarking on a solo career. She enjoyed national and international success.
Her 1988 recording of Dougie MacLean’s Caledonia was among her most well-known recordings, but her repertoire spanned the decades, leading the late Nanci Griffith to describe her as someone who had «a sacred voice».
In the RTÉ series Hand Me Down in the early 1980s, she spoke of how it was second nature to her to sing with her relatives, given the traditions passed on to her from a young age.
Dolores Keane said she had been singing from the age of two and spoke about how musicians such as Willie Clancy and others were regular visitors to her home place as she was growing up.
«I can never remember actually learning any of those songs, actually sitting down and trying to learn them … but I heard them sung so often, I just had them in the head all the time. I could sing most of the songs with Sarah and Rita, definitely all of them by 11 or 12.»
Musicians would regularly travel to the house for a session, «which made it all the merrier», sometimes staying for a weekend, sometimes for a week.
The original family home of Carragh Cottage was the location for the filming of a subsequent documentary on the occasion of Dolores Keane’s 70th birthday.
The generational involvement in music took in her brothers Seán and Matt, sister Theresa and several nieces and a grandniece.
In the programme she spoke about the impact singing had on her life: «Music is part of me so much, I couldn’t envisage life without music.»
President expresses condolences after loss of ‚one of the great voices‘
President Catherine Connolly has led the tributes to her fellow Galway native. «It is with profound sadness that I learned of the death of Dolores Keane,» the President said in a statement. «She was one of the great voices of this island, and of the world.
Pat McGrath
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2026/0316/1563739-dolores-keane/
‚A true pioneer of the folk tradition‘: Tributes paid to folk singer Dolores Keane
Dolores Keane has been hailed as «a true pioneer of the folk tradition» after her death, at age 72, was announced on Monday.
The musician died peacefully in her sleep overnight at her home in Caherlistrane, Co Galway. A member of the renowned Keane musical family, she first came to prominence performing with her aunts Rita and Sarah.
Dolores co‑founded the pioneering traditional group De Danann in 1975, alongside Frankie Gavin, Alec Finn, Johnny ‚Ringo‘ McDonagh, and Charlie Piggott, having been invited in as the band’s original vocalist after the musicians’ early sessions in Spiddal, Co Galway.
Their self‑titled debut album Dé Danann — produced by Dónal Lunny — was released the same year drew widespread acclaim. Their rendition of The Rambling Irishman, featuring Dolores’s lead vocal, became a major hit at home and internationally.
Alison O’Reilly
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41811518.html
Dolores Keane: Soulful traditional music singer forged a path for other women
Traditional music has lost one of its most celebrated singers with the death of Dolores Keane at the age of 72. Her earthy vocal tones were rooted in her home place of Caherlistrane in Galway, where she grew up in a home steeped in the tradition. Both her parents played music, and she was immersed in sean-nós singing through her aunts, Rita and Sarah Keane, with whom she lived from the age of four.
Dolores Keane was first and foremost a soulful singer, but she also played whistle and flute, which she learned from her uncle Paddy. Growing up in the heart of traditional music, she competed at many fleadhanna ceoil in the 1960s, where she garnered All Ireland awards for singing in both Irish and English.
She achieved almost immediate acclaim when she cofounded De Danann in the mid-1970s. The band, anchored instrumentally by Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn, provided Dolores with the perfect foil for her clean, warm vocal style, their arrangements weaving in and around her voice with the intricacy of a grapevine.
De Danann achieved enormous success, and Keane later happily shared vocals with Mary Black, their voices finding deep purchase in one another’s distinct approach to each song.
Siobhán Long
President leads tributes following death of Irish folk singer Dolores Keane
“Shaped from childhood by the tradition of her aunts Rita and Sarah, she carried that forward with fierce, joyful intelligence, and she made it new,” President Connolly said.
“With De Dannan, in her solo work, on A Woman’s Heart, and in recordings that have become part of the fabric of Irish life, she showed what it means to bring the full weight of yourself to a song,” she added.
“Nanci Griffith once said she had a sacred voice. She was right. But what made it sacred was her honesty. She gave everything, without pretence. “To all who loved her and were moved by her, and we are many, I say simply: a voice like hers does not leave us, it moves into the air and lives forever.”
Fiona Audley
Dolores Keane obituary
Irish singer with an earthy, expressive voice whose repertoire focused on traditional songs
The singer Dolores Keane, who has died aged 72, was a founder member of De Dannan, one of the most successful of the Irish traditional music bands that emerged in the 1970s, and especially popular in the US. She later pursued a solo career and sang on A Woman’s Heart, which topped the Irish charts in 1992 and became the highest selling album of Irish music (with 1m copies sold worldwide).
Her best-known solo recording, in 1988, was a version of Dougie MacLean’s Scottish ballad Caledonia.
The US singer Nanci Griffith described Dolores as having “a sacred voice … the soul of Ireland”. Her singing was deep, earthy, warm-hearted and expressive, adapting easily from her family-based traditional repertoire to more recently written songs. Her work as a solo singer as well as in De Dannan had a lasting influence on more recent Irish female singers, including Radie Peat of the band Lankum.
Derek Schofield
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/mar/22/dolores-keane-obituary
Dolores Keane, Singer Known as the ‘Soul of Ireland,’ Dies at 72
Dolores Keane, a singer whose rich voice, deep roots in Ireland’s County Galway and collaborations with American artists like John Prine, Nanci Griffith and Emmylou Harris earned her legions of fans and a reputation as “the soul of Ireland,” died on March 16 at her home in Caherlistrane, in western Ireland. She was 72.
Her brother Seán Keane, also a renowned singer, announced the death on Facebook. He did not provide a cause.
Ms. Keane emerged in the 1970s as part of a renaissance in traditional Irish music. A wave of artists was attracting a new generation of fans through skillful updates of classic songs as well as clever reinterpretations of Americana, blues and even pop music.
Clay Risen
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/arts/music/dolores-keane-dead.html
«Elle était l’une des plus grandes voix du monde»: la chanteuse Dolores Keane est morte
Dolores Keane chantait sur l’album «A Woman’s Heart», qui s’est vendu à un million d’exemplaires dans le monde entier.
«La reine de la soul irlandaise», titre The Telegraph. «Une véritable géante de la musique», selon Irish Independent. Dolores Keane, à jamais associée aux voix célestes de l’album A Woman’s Heart, est décédée,.
Aux côtés d’Eleanor McEvoy, Mary et Frances Black, Sharon Shannon et Maura O’Connell, elle aura participé à l’album le plus vendu de l’histoire de la musique en Irlande. Sorti en juillet 1992, l’album A Woman’s Heart s’est vendu à plus de 750 000 exemplaires, un record dans l’histoire des charts irlandais, et à près d’un million d’exemplaires dans le monde.
La célèbre musicienne est décédée paisiblement dans son sommeil à son domicile de Caherlistrane, dans le comté de Galway, Elle aura connu un succès national et international. Dolores Keane s’est d’abord fait connaître en se produisant aux côtés de ses tantes, Rita et Sarah. Elle deviendra par la suite l’une des voix les plus adorées et respectées de la scène musicale traditionnelle et folklorique irlandaise.
Briac Trébert
Muere Dolores Keane, pionera cantante de folk irlandesa, a los 72 años
Dolores formaba parte de la reconocida familia Keane, profundamente ligada a la tradición musical. Se dio a conocer actuando junto a sus tías Rita y Sarah. En algunas de sus entrevistas, afirmaba que cantaba desde los dos años y explicaba que hacerlo con sus familiares era algo natural para ella. La estirpe musical de la familia incluye a sus hermanos Seán y Matt, su hermana Theresa, así como a varias sobrinas y una sobrina nieta.
Inició su carrera profesional a mediados de los 70 como integrante de los legendarios De Dannan, grupo pionero de música tradicional que cofundó junto a Frankie Gavin, Alec Finn, Johnny ‘Ringo’ McDonagh y Charlie Piggott. Con esta banda grabó varios discos antes de emprender su trayectoria en solitario.
Dolores Keane, morta la voce simbolo della tradizione irlandese
La cantante Dolores Keane, tra le più autorevoli interpreti del folk tradizionale irlandese, è morta nel sonno nella sua casa di Caherlistrane, nella contea di Galway, in Irlanda, all’età di 72 anni. Nata il 26 settembre 1953 in una famiglia profondamente legata alla musica, era membro della celebre dinastia musicale dei Keane. Cresciuta dalle zie Sarah Keane e Rita Keane, figure di spicco del canto tradizionale sean-nós, sviluppò fin da giovanissima uno stile vocale intenso, caldo ed espressivo che sarebbe diventato il suo marchio distintivo.
In Memoriam DOLORES KEANE (1953–2026)
Dolores Keane war über 50 Jahre eine der bekanntesten und einflussreichsten Stimmen Irlands. Nun ist die Sängerin, die auch maßgeblich mit dem Irish Folk Revival der 1970er- und 1980er-Jahre verbunden war, im Alter von 73 Jahren verstorben.
Aufgewachsen in einer sehr musikalischen Familie in Caherlistrane, County Galway, erlangte Dolores erstmals in den 1970er-Jahren Bekanntheit als Gründungsmitglied der legendären Gruppe DE DANNAN, und wurde so auch schnell über die Grenzen der grünen Insel hinaus populär.
Florian Hessler
https://www.schubladenfrei.com/cms/aktuelles/in-memoriam-dolores-keane-1953-2026/
Audios / Videos:
De Danann with Dolores Keane – Galway Bay, 1985
De Danann with Dolores Keane – Teddy O’Neill
Hard Times Come Again No More – Dolores Keane, Mary Black & De Danann, 1986
Dolores Keane – Caledonia
Paul Brady & Dolores Keane – Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore (Live in 1988)
Sailing to Inishbofin with Dolores Keane, Co. Galway, Ireland 1990
Dolores Keane singt „Caledonia“ bei den TG4 Music Awards 2022
Dolores Keane & Emmet Cahill – Where Have All The Flowers Gone | Fleadh 2023 | TG4
Mehr:
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dolores-keane-mn0000795905#biography
https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/432674-Dolores-Keane
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/ab05807f-c127-4cb5-9f72-72ec47096632
https://www.fatea-records.co.uk/CAMBRID/cam99/dkeane.htm
https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt4968172/?language=de-de
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Keane
(*) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Keane
#DoloresKeane #DeDannan #CHcultura @CHculturaCH ∆cultura cultura+
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