Clannad are an Irish band formed in 1970 in Gweedore, County Donegal. They are a family band composed of siblings Moya Brennan, Ciarán Brennan, Pól Brennan, who left in 1990 and rejoined in 2011) and their twin uncles Noel Duggan and Pádraig Duggan. Their sister/niece Enya left the group in 1981 to pursue a solo career.

Clannad was formed in 1970 by siblings Ciarán, Pól, and Máire Brennan and their twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. The five grew up in Dore, an area of Gweedore, a remote parish in County Donegal in the northwest corner of Ireland. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the main language. Raised as a Roman Catholic family of musicians, the Brennans’ mother, Máire “Baba” Brennan (née Duggan), was a music teacher while their father, Leo Brennan, was a member of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband. Later in their careers the two bought and ran Leo’s Tavern, a pub in nearby Meenaleck where the Duggan and Brennan children would perform covers of songs by The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Joni Mitchell.

One night, the children were performing during late hours when a local police officer entered the pub. The family feared criminal charges, but to their surprise the officer was in possession of an application form to have the group enter a local music competition. When it came to submitting their band name, someone had suggested Clann as Dóbhair, Irish for “The Family from Dore”, and the name stuck. The band adopted the name until 1973. The Brennans’ and Duggans’ passion for traditional Irish music soon expanded beyond their native Gweedore, and soon performed elsewhere including Tory Island, off Donegal’s coast. Armed with some 500 Gaelic songs, they would later begin to arrange these songs for a full band.