Now Maria Doyle Kennedy is an entertainer that I have admired for a long long time as a singer and as an actress who has appeared in quite a few movies. I do not know her personally but I do know her husband Kieran Kennedy from my music days when I played in Cork as he always turned up for our gigs being an admirer of our band Sunset. Now he has gone on to bigger and better things with his band Black Velvet along with his wife Maria who also performs with the band as well as solo, so now you know where her name Kennedy came from, her husband.
Here I am going to give you a little bit of history on this fabulous singer and actress who has been a super star for many years. With a singing and acting career that has spanned more than 30 years, she has established herself as one of Ireland’s most prolific artists and entertainers. As an actress, she is best known for her extensive television roles as Patsy in “Father Ted” (1998), Catherine of Aragon in “The Tudors” (2007–2010), Vera Bates in “Downton Abbey” (2011), Siobhan Sadler in “Orphan Black” (2013–2017), and Jocasta Cameron in “Outlander” (2018–present). Doyle Kennedy has also appeared in numerous films, including “The Commitments” (1991), “The Matchmaker” (1997), “The General” (1998), “Miss Julie” (1999), “Tara Road” (2005), “Albert Nobbs” (2011), “Byzantium” (2012), “Jupiter Ascending” (2015), “Sing Street” (2016), and “The Conjuring 2” (2016). In 2020, she was listed as number 46 on The Irish Times list of Ireland’s greatest film actors. As a singer, Doyle Kennedy has released eleven albums and fourteen singles.
She was born in Clontarf, Dublin, before moving with her parents, sister, and brother, Feargal, to Enniscorthy, County Wexford, for her father’s career as a broker. They eventually settled in Bray, County Wicklow, and she still claims a close, personal connection with the town. She began singing early in life and comes from a family that appreciates “”party pieces” and the tradition of gathering friends together with singing. At the age of 9 or 10, she would go to a friend’s house every Sunday evening to listen to the top-20 broadcast on the radio.
Her first experience singing in public was at one of her parents’ parties at the age of 13. She recalls that, as a teenager, her mother was able to gauge her mood according to how much singing she was doing. When she was 14, she was given a Billie Holiday album that was the first piece of music to affect her emotionally. She was then opened up to artists such as Patti Smith, Radiohead, and Low, artists whom she still cites as some of her favorites.
She never considered a formal career in singing until after she graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, with a joint honors degree in political science and business, and she never considered becoming an actress until after she established herself as a singer.
Maria Doyle Kennedy joined a band while still in college, performing with Hothouse Flowers during the band’s early years in the mid-1980s. She appeared on their 1987 single “Love Don’t Work This Way”. She left the band shortly after to join The Black Velvet Band with her future husband, Kieran Kennedy. They formed originally to enter a Slogadh competition, that they eventually won, but music quickly became a motivating force in her life. The band released their first album “When Justice Came” in 1989. Recorded in Los Angeles in 1989, it reached number four on the Irish charts, and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the late 1980s. She then united with producers Clive Langer and Allen Winstanley to record her second Black Velvet Band album, “King of Myself”, in 1992.
“The Lady Sings The Blues”, a compilation album featuring Doyle Kennedy alongside Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and Annie Lennox followed, and proved to be a best-selling album in 1994. It also established Doyle Kennedy in new markets throughout Europe, the US, and Japan. Touring Europe for the first time, she got rave reviews from The Guardian and The Times of London.
She produced a documentary, “Golden Boy”, based on the life and work of Irish artist Patrick Scott, for which she specifically created the production company Mermaid Films. She has appeared as a broadcaster on Irish television, filling in for John Kelly on his “Mystery Train” show and for Tom Dunne on “Pet Sounds”. Doyle Kennedy also hosted an RTÉ musical series “Borderline” in the late 1980s.
After releasing music with The Black Velvet Band, Doyle Kennedy left the group to pursue a solo career in music. In 2001, Doyle Kennedy released music on Mermaid Records, a label she founded herself in 2000. Her debut solo album “Charm” was released in 2001, following the release of the two lead singles, “Stars Above” and “Babes”. She coordinated “Sirens”, which is a compilation album of female artists and was released in 2003. In the same year, she performed on the first series of “Other Voices”. She released the album “Skullcover” for a limited time between 2004 and 2005. The album contained her covers of songs such as “Lovesong”, “Video Killed the Radio Star” and “You”. Doyle Kennedy then released the alternative folk album “Mutter” in 2007 along with accompanying singles “Fuckability” and “Forty Days”.
After the release of “Fuckability”, Hot Press praised the single and stated that Doyle Kennedy “is one of the finest voices this country has ever produced”. She was subsequently nominated in the Best Irish Female category at the 2008 Meteor Awards. An accompanying DVD album for this record was also released in the same year. Entitled “The Band of Maria’s”, it included exclusive live material from some of Doyle Kennedy’s promotional tour venues.
In 2011, Doyle Kennedy and her husband Kieran released a collaboration album entitled “The Storms Are on the Ocean”. The album features a collection of Appalachian folk and country songs. In the same year, Doyle Kennedy released “La Sirena 1992-1997”, a collection of rock-oriented tracks that had been recorded prior to her solo career. Her sixth album project, the folk-infused “Sing”, was released in September 2012 with Warner Music Group holding distribution rights to the album within the UK.
In 2014 and 2015, Doyle Kennedy released two more albums: “Maria Live”, an album of songs performed live at Vicar Street and Pepper Canister Church, with her husband Kieran providing the instrumentation and production; and “Mutter’s Daughter”, an album containing unreleased and re-released tracks from the album “Mutter”. She then worked with her husband to create a follow-up album to “Sing”. In 2015, she wrote a song entitled “Pride” as a response to the Irish Marriage Referendum of 2015. She also composed a song about the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in response to international media coverage of the Ferguson unrest and other police-related violence in the United States.
Irish music magazine Hot Press called her “truly one of Ireland’s greatest vocalists” and one of their “best-kept secrets”, while BBC Music reviewer Andy Fyfe opined that Doyle Kennedy’s “transcendence sets her apart from the avalanche of female singer-songwriters”. Upon its release, Nicole Byrne of Shout4Music called “Sing” “one of the best Irish albums of the year – if not the best” and referred to Maria Doyle Kennedy as a “Celtic angel”. Her voice has been credited as one of Ireland’s national treasures.
Doyle Kennedy’s first experience with acting came in 1991 when she played Natalie Murphy in the musical comedy-drama “The Commitments”. Director Alan Parker recruited her, and other established singers, for the film. An image of Doyle Kennedy in character as Natalie Murphy in the film “The Commitments” was featured on an Irish postage stamp as part of the Ireland 1996: Irish Cinema Centenary series issued by An Post. The image also includes her “The Commitments” co-stars Angeline Ball as Imelda Quirke, Bronagh Gallagher as Bernie McGloughlin, and Andrew Strong as Deco Cuffe.
She continued to expand her acting platform with roles in 1997s “The Matchmaker”, directed by Mark Joffe; John Boorman’s 1998 crime drama film, “The General”, Alan Bleasdale’s 1999 miniseries “Oliver Twist”, and the 1999 British television series “Queer as Folk”. In 2006, she received small-screen success in the television series “Hide & Seek”. In 2007 and 2008, she received widespread recognition for her role as Catherine of Aragon on the British historical fiction television series “The Tudors”.
In 2010, Doyle Kennedy portrayed Sonya, a nanny to Dexter Morgan’s son Harrison in the fifth season of the Showtime crime drama series “Dexter”. She also appeared on Irish screens early in 2011 on TG4’s “Corp & Anam” in her first Irish-language acting role. Also in 2011, she joined the cast of ITV’s period drama series “Downton Abbey”, appearing as Vera Bates, estranged wife of the valet of the Earl of Grantham. In the same year, she also played a small role as a maid, Mary, in the period drama film “Albert Nobbs”, alongside American actress Close.
In 2012, Doyle Kennedy played a leading role in the ITV miniseries “Titanic” and also appeared beside fellow Irish actress Saoirse Ronan in Neil Jordan’s horror fantasy film “Byzantium”, which premiered at the Festival. In 2013, Doyle Kennedy began co-starring in the Canadian science fiction thriller series “Orphan Black”, as Siobhán Sadler. She officially decided on joining the series when showrunner Graeme Manson mentioned that Patti Smith was the inspiration for her character. The series received critical acclaim, earning multiple accolades. She received a Canadian Screen Award for her role, from two nominations, and remained part of the main cast from the first season until the series’ season.
She reprised her leading role as Máiréad Mhic Iarnáin for the second series of “Corp & Anam” in 2014. She also appeared as Jupiter’s mother Aleksa in The Wachowskis’ 2015 science fiction action film “Jupiter Ascending”.
On 12 April 2016, Doyle Kennedy was announced as having been cast as Roisin Kelly in the 2017 six-part miniseries Redwater. In 2017, Doyle Kennedy was cast as Jocasta MacKenzie Cameron in the fourth season of the Starz historical romantic drama series “Outlander”, which is an adaptation of novel series of the same name by Diana Gabaldon. The season premiered in 2018 and she continued in the role for multiple seasons. Also in 2018, she starred as George Cusack in the second season of the RTÉ One drama series “Striking Out”, in which she appears as a series regular. In 2020, Doyle Kennedy was cast as Illa in the epic fantasy drama series “The Wheel of Time”.
She first met musician Kieran Kennedy at a gig she was performing, and he subsequently invited her to sing on one of his demos. This event turned into a first date for the couple, and they married soon after in 1988.
The couple have four sons, including one of Doyle Kennedy’s sons from a previous relationship; they are Lewis, Jesse James, Daniel, and Salvador.
She states that music is what still keeps her and Kieran together after nearly 30 years of marriage. Maria Doyle Kennedy, Kieran, and their four sons live together in Dublin.
Maria Doyle Kennedy considers music to be the most integral aspect of her life, and she prefers her musical endeavors over her acting ones. She states: “I do not miss acting when I am not doing it, but I would not spend a day without singing, even to myself.”
She still experiences nerves before she sings on stage, but she has learned ways to control them through pacing and breathing techniques.
When acting, Doyle Kennedy is attracted to characters who are multifaceted and able to display not only a loving, motherly side, but also a fierce, determined side.
She draws musical influence from jazz musician Billie Holiday, American country singer John Prine (with whom she went on to duet on her “Sing” album), and fellow Irish folk musician Dónal Lunny, a close personal friend of hers, and has been referred to as “an Irish Patti Smith.” Additionally, she draws acting influences from her personal heroes Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton, with whom she starred on Downton Abbey.
Irish artist Patrick Scott, one of Doyle Kennedy’s dearest personal friends, also served as one of her biggest inspirations for her life, in general. She admired his ability to allow his life to inform his art and found inspiration in his sentiment that improvement, and not degradation, can still happen in old age.
Is Maria some performer or what? The word you’re looking for is just brilliant and she’s got a lot more to give us. So, look out for Maria Doyle Kennedy on her next tour when this pandemic is over and gone forever as you won’t be disappointed by how great she really is.